Iran: Nuclear Programme

Lord Dykes: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether the recent responses by the Government of Iran concerning their nuclear programme fully meet the United Nations Security Council requests.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, Iran has yet to respond substantively to the proposals made by the E3+3. These would give Iran everything that it needs to develop a modern civil nuclear power generation programme while meeting international concerns. We hope that Iran will take the positive path that is being extended, and we look forward to an early response. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will discuss Iran with her counterparts from the other G8 nations in Moscow today.

Lord Dykes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. The atmosphere was very positive when Javier Solana presented his proposals on 6 June in Tehran and, indeed, some of the more provocative American comments have faded away somewhat since then. However, is the Minister confident that the success of the EU3 negotiating team and its capacity to exercise supervision and oversight in the longer term will be fully maintained, linked to the UNSC 5+1, bearing in mind the very narrow dividing line between civilian and military enrichment activities?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, there is every intention to superintend this process rigorously. The aim of the Iranians at the moment is probably to delay making any kind of response until after the G8 meeting in St Petersburg. The aim of the international community as a whole—and I mean "as a whole"—is to ensure that there is a response much earlier than that, in weeks rather than months.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, there must surely be a suspicion that the elites in Iran, with strong popular support, have made a strategic decision that it is in their national interest to acquire a military nuclear capability and that they are prepared to pay a high price for that, including condemnation at the UN, international isolation, sanctions and benefits forgone. Can my noble friend give any evidence to refute that suspicion?

Lord Triesman: No, my Lords, I cannot provide evidence to refute that suspicion. Iran has only one nuclear power reactor under construction for which it already has a 10-year fuel supply contract and a commitment from Russia to supply fuel for the entire lifetime of that reactor. There are no other reactors under construction or even approaching construction. To rush ahead and master enrichment technology and to continue towards the construction, on an industrial scale, of an enrichment facility has no rational basis if one looks at it simply in terms of fuel creation.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, does the Minister agree that Iran is clearly not very good at replying promptly to letters and obviously does not want to reply until after the St. Petersburg summit? Indeed, it has said that on 22 August it might deign to reply. Obviously, we must keep pressing all the time. Does he agree that it is very important to keep Russia—particularly Russia—and China on side in maintaining the pressure on Tehran and, therefore, that attacks on Russia's democracy of the kind that Vice President Cheney delivered a few weeks ago are not very helpful in the circumstances and should perhaps be discouraged? Does he agree that China and Russia should take a positive lead, despite the arrival of Condoleezza Rice in this grouping, I gather, from Afghanistan?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the Iranians do not always reply by return of post, unlike my own department. I certainly have no comment to make on what we could or could not encourage Vice President Cheney to do, but I agree with the broad thrust of the sentiment. In Vienna, the E3+3 agreed, in principle, that there should be efforts to draft a Security Council resolution so that it could be adopted very rapidly if Iran rejects the request. It is absolutely critical that Russia and China, which have been cautious, are and continue to be on board in that process. That must be where we direct our efforts.

The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be more difficult to hold Iran to account under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty were Her Majesty's Government to decide to upgrade Britain's Trident nuclear system, which would arguably conflict with Article 6 of that treaty?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I do not agree with that proposition. Iran's obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, to which it is a signatory, are plain. We are a registered nuclear power under the treaty, and it is right and within our responsibilities to sustain that role should we choose to do so.

Lord Richard: My Lords, can my noble friend assure us that force will not be used in relation to Iran without the sanction of the Security Council?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, it is premature and potentially even dangerous to explore all the options that may occur in extremis. We are solidly locked into the process of the Security Council and of trying to keep the international obligations that the E3+3 have established for everybody as the basis for everything. Nobody should go into any negotiation with the supposition of failure and what would follow from that. The task must be to make this negotiation a success.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, if the Iranians suspend enrichment and a dialogue gets underway, it will have to go a lot wider than merely nuclear issues and will have to address Iran's security concerns, some of which are legitimate and all of which must be discussed if we are to get on to a sounder and sustainable footing with that country?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the negotiations are bound to go further and wider. I say that with a caveat: the first obligation under the non-proliferation treaty is to cease the enrichment programme, which might lead to the creation of nuclear weapons. Everybody needs to feel confident about their security but nations should not impede the potential security of other nations in their region, and more widely.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we on these Benches assure the Government that we strongly support the efforts they have made with the French and German foreign ministers to maintain a dialogue with Iran. Can the Government assure us in return that they are well aware of the broader regional context in dealing with Iran? Iran has Afghanistan, Iraq and Azerbaijan as neighbours, and minorities which overlap its frontiers. We must ensure that, in dealing with an important country in the region, we think about the broader context for Western policy and the region as a whole.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, it is precisely because of that more general context that such effort has gone into sustaining a proper negotiation, recognising that there must be a degree of satisfaction in the outcome from everybody's point of view. I have no fundamental disagreement with the noble Lord's proposition.

Iraq: UK Forces

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will arrange regular visits of sufficient duration by Ministers and officials of the Ministry of Defence to British units in Iraq in order that they may understand the problems and pressures with which the units have to contend.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I am sure that the House will wish to join me in expressing our sincere condolences to the families and friends of the soldiers killed and injured in Afghanistan on Tuesday.
	The Answer is yes. Such meetings are commonplace and essential to ensure that Ministers and officials, in taking decisions on operational theatres, understand the conditions faced by deployed personnel. I had the opportunity to meet UK personnel when I visited Iraq last July. The Secretary of State for Defence has had the opportunity more recently, during his visits in May and June this year.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I am on the edge of being grateful to the Minister for his reply, but that gratitude does not go too far at the moment. His department from time to time gives the impression—it may be wrong—of detachment from the whole operation; that it is outside its normal duties and therefore not much to do with it. Will the Minister take every opportunity to remind his department and everybody within his reach that the department and the Government have two duties: first, to recall at all times that British troops are engaged in an extremely dangerous and very unpleasant operation; and, secondly, to ensure that the equipment they have at their disposal gives them the maximum possible protection against modern explosives and modern weapons?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I am concerned to learn that the noble Lord feels that there is detachment because I can assure the House that there is not. The department has an absolute commitment, particularly by Ministers, to ensure that there is full understanding of the real challenges that our forces face on operations. In my own case, as I have responsibility for equipment, I do absolutely everything to ensure that our equipment is the best it can be.

Lord Garden: My Lords, we on these Benches add our condolences to the families of the two Special Forces members who were killed so tragically in Afghanistan on Tuesday and to the families of those who were injured.
	Although I understand the point behind the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, I wonder whether the Minister agrees that visits to hard-pressed operational units can become an additional burden and pressure? If so, can he assure us that each visit will be vetted for need and co-ordinated so that seats on fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter lift are not used up to no purpose?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord because he is right. I was talking this morning to a commander who returned from Iraq after commanding forces there. He talked about having to deal with two visits a day which took up about an hour of his time. Although the situation has significantly improved we need to ensure that we achieve a proper balance in providing opportunities to those who wish to visit operational theatres. There are many more people who wish to visit than there are slots available. We have to ensure that we put operational considerations absolutely first, as the noble Lord has indicated.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, visits to troops on operational duties may be burdensome, but why can we not have more visits by Ministers to troops who are about to leave for Iraq and Afghanistan? I also thank my noble friend for his Answers to my series of Questions on this matter.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, my noble friend is right. Understanding the operational commitments and demands on our forces is not simply a matter of visiting troops on operations; it is also important to make necessary visits to troops before and after operations and to make the most of ministerial visits which are a part of our departmental responsibilities. I have responsibility for equipment. When, for example, I visited the Commander-in-Chief Land to review our Armed Forces' equipment, particularly armed fighting vehicles, I talked to troops about their experiences in the field. Such visits are essential to our role.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, can the Minister please tell the House how many times Ministers have visited men and women in hospital and in residential accommodation provided by various military charities? Such visits are an enormous morale booster and not quite as time-consuming and expensive as going abroad.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, the noble Countess is right that those visits are fundamental. Our policy, however, is not to talk about the visits that Ministers make to hospitals. I have visited our troops in hospital, and I know that my ministerial colleagues have done and continue to do so, but we do not think it an appropriate matter to talk about. I am willing to write to the noble Countess and give her the numbers if she would like, but we do not feel it appropriate to go into great detail on the subject.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, do the press have unlimited permission to go where they want, when they want?

Lord Drayson: No, my Lords, the press do not. Our policy—consistent with operational pressures and ensuring that the order of priority is maintained—is to encourage the press to have the greatest understanding of operational commitments and the challenges that we face.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, from these Benches we also send our condolences to the families of the two soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
	The Chancellor of the Exchequer has made a startling conversion to appreciating the values of defence. Will Defence Ministers encourage him to visit units, if only in this country, so that he can better understand their problems and pressures?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, my right honourable friend has done so.

Prisoners: Foreign Nationals

Baroness Sharples: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How many dangerous foreign nationals are still at large and why 200 released from prison are not going to be deported.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this is part of the information on foreign national prisoners that the Immigration and Nationality Directorate has been asked to recheck. The director general of the IND confirmed the position to the Home Affairs Committee, and I cannot provide any information in advance of that. He explained to it that there were around 200 cases with an initial decision not to proceed with deportation. A review process is in train, which means that these cases are being reconsidered.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that half-Answer. Will he comment on what the new Immigration Minister said about the possibility of there being no deportation and an amnesty for these people?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, subsequent to that it has been made clear that there is no amnesty. That remains the Government's position.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, does the Minister have any figures that compare the reoffending rates of foreign nationals convicted of serious criminal offences with our own nationals similarly convicted? Are they higher or lower?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I do not have those figures. I am happy to write to the noble Lord with any information that can be gleaned. My understanding is that the figures in any event are likely to be broadly similar.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, with how many countries have we signed the memorandum of understanding about their nationals being deported from this country? What will happen where no such understanding exists?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord's second question, if it is not safe to deport people to a country such as Somalia, then we do not undertake to do that. I do not have the precise number of countries in relation to his first question, but undertake to write to him on that point.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, on 3 May in another place the Prime Minister said:
	"One part of dealing with this is taking measures now to legislate so that everyone who is a foreign national who serves a prison sentence is automatically deported".—[Official Report, Commons, 3/5/06; col. 963.]
	When do the Government expect to fulfil that undertaking?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it would be wrong of me at this stage to anticipate additions to the legislative programme. Clearly, we are looking very carefully at this issue. I am sure the noble Viscount shares my assumption that there will be an automatic presumption to deport.

Lord Dubs: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that some countries will not issue passports or travel documents to those of their nationals whom we wish to deport? That is one of the problems facing the Home Office.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. One of the great difficulties in deporting foreign national prisoners is a lack of documentation. Receiving countries will not receive if no documents are available, and certainly if no passport is available.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, will the Minister explain on what basis he is not giving this House information, when the same information is presumably about to be revealed to a Select Committee of another place?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it would be discourteous to the Home Affairs Committee—

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, a promise and commitment has been made by the director general that that information will be provided to the Select Committee first.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I put down a Question for Written Answer on 26 April asking whether convicted foreign prisoners who had been recommended for deportation were entitled to apply for asylum. I received the reply only yesterday—nine weeks later. Does he understand the reply I received? I do not.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord has me worried. I will go away and read that reply very carefully; I apologise to him for the length of time that it took to reply to his Written Question.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, is it policy to deport foreign nationals to countries where torture is regularly practised in the absence of the memorandum of understanding? Do the Government intend to renege on our obligations under the convention against torture?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this Government would not renege on that policy. Of course we do not want to place any individual in a position where they are going to be tortured if they are returned to an unsafe country. That is not the Government's policy. Our policy is to deport those dangerous criminals who have served time in prison and should rightly be returned to their country of origin.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the case of the Ghanaian detainee in Haslar who was deported three times by the Home Office? He got only as far as the airport and was then returned to detention. Does the Minister know whether that person has been deported, because his papers were in order?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it is not policy or practice to discuss individual cases at the Dispatch Box. I am not aware of all the details of that case. I am happy to take the point away and ensure that the noble Earl is corresponded with on the issue.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, does the Minister accept that we consider that his brief has been entirely unsatisfactory today?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I do not accept that at all. I have attempted to answer all questions that have been put to me. If I do not have the information in front of me, clearly I cannot provide it, but in every circumstance I undertake to provide as much information as I can and particular points will be responded to in correspondence.

G8: Gleneagles Summit

Baroness Whitaker: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What progress there has been on the commitments which they made at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July 2005.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, important progress has been made since Gleneagles on developing G8 commitments both to support Africa's development and on climate change. For example, significant progress has been made towards writing off the debts of the poorest countries. However, many of the G8 commitments are long term and more remains to be done. We will continue to play our part and to push other partners to do theirs.

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that realistic but positive answer. Does she agree that development aid is comprehensively undermined if the receiving country is riven by conflict that is fuelled by, in particular, small arms and light weapons? If so, can she say what efforts the UK is making to gain international agreement to prevent small arms sales to conflict zones, especially with countries that are hostile to the whole idea, such as the USA?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right that small arms undermine development because they contribute to conflict. It is our strong view that we need an international arms trade treaty. The European Union and the Commonwealth gave their backing to that last year and we aim to secure a UN resolution to begin work on a treaty this autumn. In addition, the UK Global Conflict Prevention Pool recently funded the destruction of more than 3,300 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammunition in Mozambique.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree with the comment in Monday's Times that Gleneagles last year was "pure political theatre"? Has not aid spending by the UK during the past year since Gleneagles fallen by 2 per cent, not risen at all? It appears to be rising merely because the various amounts of debt forgiveness have been counted in aid figures. Is that correct?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I certainly cannot agree with that. I would not call 100 per cent debt cancellation for 21 countries, 15 of them in Africa, an exercise in political theatre. We have had the launch of the international finance facility for immunisation to tackle preventable diseases, which is funded. We have also had the launch of the UN Peacebuilding Commission and of the infrastructure consortium, and two weeks ago I myself launched the investment climate facility in Cape Town. There has been substantial progress, but this is a long-term agenda. Our aid budget has gone up 140 per cent since 1997. If the noble Lord's party is really interested in development, it should consider the years when it was in power, when the aid budget went down steadily year on year.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, we on these Benches applaud the Prime Minister's intention, announced a few days ago, to ensure that by 2015 every African child has access to a school education. To this end, UK aid is to be £1 billion. First, is that to be a one-off £1 billion, or will it be annual? Secondly, will this aid be targeted to the neediest parts of Africa, such as Sierra Leone? What channels will we use to ensure that the aid reaches the places where it is most needed and can be put to the most effective use?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the £1 billion is annual in the sense that we made a commitment to increase our spending to £1 billion a year. That figure should go up over the years, given our commitment that half the doubling of the aid between now and 2010 will go to African countries. Last month, 22 African countries agreed to develop ambitious and costed 10-year education plans, and we announced that we would spend at least £8.5 billion on education in developing countries over the next decade. I have forgotten the third part of the noble Lord's question, I am afraid.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, the third part of my question was: what channels—what agencies—will the UK Government use?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the most effective way of giving our aid to countries where we are sure the money will not be siphoned off through corruption is through budget support; in other words, by supporting the priorities of the Governments themselves. We also work through NGOs and multilateral organisations such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, does my noble friend recall—the noble Lord, Lord Howell, may not have done so—that a very important additional outcome of Gleneagles was the decision of the European Council, under the chairmanship of our Prime Minister last December, to agree a strategic partnership for Africa? Can she confirm that central to that was the inextricable relationship between governance, security and development? Will she also report progress on the African Union buy-in to that joint strategy?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the European Commission intends to release a governance initiative as part of the integration of governance, security and development. It is currently in discussions with the African Union on implementing the strategy, which will continue as part of the EU/AU dialogue process.

Earl Attlee: My Lords—

Lord Rooker: My Lords, it is the turn of Members on the Cross Benches.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, am I right that $9 billion over three years was pledged for the development of Gaza? I quite understand that it has not been possible to spend that money, but could it be used for the benefit of Palestinians on the West Bank, or through the UNRWA, or elsewhere—for example in Lebanon?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, will know that, in light of the election of a Hamas Government, we have been looking at putting in place a separate, temporary mechanism to get money to the Palestinian people. We will continue to look at the wider use of that $9 billion over three years, which was agreed at Gleneagles, but there are capacity issues in UNRWA and other organisations operating in the Palestinian territories.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, what is being done to improve transport, skills and knowledge, particularly in Africa, rather than the infrastructure projects?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, building capacity in a range of areas, including transport, is a key part of not only our development initiatives but those of other countries. I do not have information on transport specifically but, if I can find more, I will write to the noble Earl.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, in my noble friend's initial Answer, she said that Her Majesty's Government are pushing our G8 partners to fulfil their commitments. Have any of our G8 partners not fulfilled their commitments over debt cancellation? If so, which?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I do not think that any countries have not fulfilled their commitments on debt relief. There is a five-year programme on aid volumes until 2010. European Union countries have also signed up to reaching the aid target of 0.7 per cent of their gross national income by 2015. But if I am wrong on that, I will write to my noble friend.

Lord Grocott: My Lords—

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, without accepting the automatic equation between aid and development, which seemed to be implicit in the noble Baroness's earlier answer to me, will this whole issue of aid and development and help to Africa be on the agenda for the St Petersburg summit in a few days' time?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, there will be a report-back led by the Prime Minister at the G8 St Petersburg summit. We are not looking only at aid and development. A key part of what came out of the Commission for Africa last year was the importance of getting the investment climate right in developing countries, because it is economic growth that will deliver a route out for development.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I think that it is my turn now. With the leave of the House, my noble friend the Deputy Leader will repeat a Statement on the Emissions Trading Scheme—Phase 2 after the debate on operational commitments on the Armed Forces.

Business of the House: Debates Today

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Inge set down for today shall be limited to four hours and that in the name of the Lord Ramsbotham to two hours.—(Baroness Amos.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Armed Forces

Lord Inge: rose to call attention to the level of operational commitments on the Armed Forces and the issues of recruitment, retention and funding, including the procurement programme; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, I asked to initiate this debate because Britain's Armed Forces have to face not only, in Iraq and Afghanistan, probably the most demanding, dangerous and complex operational challenges that they have faced for many years, but major funding problems and concerns about the shortcomings of equipment currently in service on operations and, in particular, the vulnerability of the old Northern Ireland Snatch Land Rovers, which was starkly illustrated in last week's Sunday Times. This is not a new problem which has suddenly arisen.
	In addition, the future equipment programme is in a muddle and is significantly under-funded. I know that at least one noble Lord will address that very important issue in some detail. The Defence Logistics Organisation, set up under the Strategic Defence Review, needs sorting out to make it, to use modern jargon, fit for purpose. I am told that in the Financial Times today there is a suggestion to combine the Defence Procurement Agency and the Defence Logistics Organisation into one large organisation. I hope that Ministers will think very carefully before they move along that path.
	These major structural problems are taking place when the Armed Forces are heavily committed on operations. At the same time, it would be a mistake to underestimate the negative impact of high profile courts martial, such as those of Trooper Williams and others. Frankly, there are parts of the Army that feel battered by the lawyers. All of this is happening at a time when our troops are heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Army is already breaking the operational guidelines about the gaps in operational tours, which were announced with a flourish at the unveiling of the Strategic Defence Review. The earliest that these guidelines could be met would be late 2007.
	All this has led to a slowly growing demand for a federation or a union. What I hope for from this debate is that it will at least make some people more aware of the huge demands on our fantastic Armed Forces and why they need greater support. I shall focus mainly on the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, procurement, and why there appears to be a growing demand for a military federation or union. Before I talk about Iraq, it is important to remember the other operational deployments in places like Bosnia, where we have been for some 16 years, and Kosovo. Currently, they are not such demanding operations as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, although Kosovo may well become increasingly difficult.
	Noble Lords will realise that the political and security situation in Iraq has become increasingly challenging and dangerous. Our Armed Forces, both Regular and Reservist, are doing a magnificent job and I pay a warm tribute to the Reserve Forces and what their contribution has been. Something like 14,500 Reservists have served in Iraq. While I am certainly not suggesting that we should pack our bags and come home with our tail between our legs, it does not help that the war has become increasingly unpopular and no longer commands the support which it did. I am sure I do not need to remind the Minister how important support is for the Regular and Reserve service men and women fighting in Iraq and how vital it is also for their families. In all I say, we should never forget the pressure on our service families and what they have to cope with. I would add that getting the Army's message across has been impacted, I believe, by the decision to cut the three single service directors of public relations. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will say something more about that because he has firsthand knowledge.
	As a start, it would be helpful if the Government as a whole—I stress, as a whole—put their full support behind the war. I personally am not clear what the coalition's strategic security objectives are in Iraq or how it plans to achieve them. I realise that you cannot look at security in isolation and have to consider the political and economic objectives as well. I also recognise that it is not an easy question to answer in the time available and that the Minister may prefer to give a more detailed written reply. But it would be a great help if he were to outline at least the key political and economic objectives of our strategy, and I say that because I have a real sense of drift and confusion about where we are going in Iraq.
	I am not sure that commentators and policymakers really understand what General Sir Rupert Smith was talking about when he described the difficulties of fighting a war among the people, and how difficult it is to conduct complex military operations in a nation you are trying to help when at one minute our soldiers are acting as peacekeepers, but then suddenly and very dramatically the situation changes and they are fully engaged in a major fire fight with an enemy dressed the same as many of the innocent bystanders—and they have an enemy trying to kill them in the most bloody way possible. At the same time, soldiers sometimes have to try to make arrests in vehicles that they know do not provide adequate protection.
	I shall move on to Afghanistan, a country which exports a very high proportion of the heroin on the streets of this country, and I accept that it is a noble objective to want to greatly reduce the Afghan heroin crop. But I wonder if we have thought through the implications of our policy. I believe that it is a huge long-term challenge and I have very serious reservations about the size and fighting capability of our deployment, and about our operational objectives in Afghanistan. I am not arguing that we should not be there; we are where we are, but we need to recognise that the situation on the ground could well deteriorate seriously and quickly. We therefore need to consider the implications of this on the need for increased force levels and additional equipment; and more widely, the implications for NATO, Pakistan, and the allies serving with us in Afghanistan—who incidentally are already on very different and much more restrictive rules of engagement. One has only to take a brief look at the history of Afghanistan to put this deployment into perspective. Here I am not just thinking about our own nation's previous disasters there. More recently, there has been the defeat of the Red Army, albeit with significant CIA and other support, but that strategic failure in Afghanistan played a significant part in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
	I happen to believe it is na-ve to think that the destruction and removal of the poppy crop can be achieved without a major fight. I hope I am wrong but, like most soldiers, I have been educated to plan on the worst case. I would like a clearer understanding of the Government's plan for the removal of the poppy crop and what the replacement economy will be. I would also like a clearer understanding about the role of other government departments and other nations, and what part they will play in the nation-building of Afghanistan. I would particularly like to know about Pakistan, which clearly has a major role to play.
	If I am right in thinking that things will get worse before they get better, from a military perspective we need to recognise that even from a cursory glance at our force levels in Helmand province, we do not have an adequate reserve in theatre ready and available. Helmand province, as has been said in many newspapers, is a very dangerous area, and very exposed. In addition, it is exposed to the turbulent tribal areas of Pakistan and to infiltrators from Iran. It does not make military sense, to me, for a reserve to be in the United Kingdom or, say, Cyprus. It needs to be readily available, in theatre, acclimatised and aware of local conditions, and not some hundreds of miles away.
	Even more worrying is the fact that there is no adequate reserve at the theatre level available for General Richards, who commands the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, and for whom I have great respect. We are breaking the basic rules of military tactical and operational level planning. The coalition failed to think through the possible consequences of the war in Iraq, and I have a nasty feeling we may be doing the same in Afghanistan.
	The Minister should be quite clear: I will of course support our and NATO's forces in Afghanistan, but I want the Government to recognise the challenges which our Armed Forces are facing and that significant reinforcements of people and equipment may be necessary. In addition, it will be critical for other government ministries to play a major role and to work closely with the Ministry of Defence and with the forces on the ground in what is likely to be a dangerous environment.
	In thinking about Iraq and Afghanistan, I wonder where the political and military schwerpunkt is. I have to use that word, because it is a wonderful, Clausewitzian word. It means: where is the point of main effort? Is it Iraq or is it Afghanistan? I put this thought on the table because I sense there is a lack of European political will and European military capability to support both theatres of operation adequately. This was a strategic dilemma, on a much greater scale, which faced Churchill and Alanbrooke during the Second World War. I hope we are not making the mistake of trying to be strong everywhere and ending up being strong nowhere.
	Before I leave operational issues, I should like to add that I recognise why it is necessary to break the operational guidelines on the gap between operational tours for our very small Army. But like many other planning assumptions made by the previous and present Governments, they have been shown to be very optimistic. Indeed, some of the Armed Forces' problems today are a hangover from the previous Government and when I was on my watch as Chief of the Defence Staff. But there has been the time, even if there has not been the money, to rectify some of those mistakes. Frankly, I get a real sense that the Army, in particular, is too small. Given the current pressure and intensity of operational service which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, I wonder whether the tour intervals planned between operational tours, not only for the teeth arms, but for the signals and the logistical and medical services, are realistic and whether they need to be longer. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will say more about that.
	When the planning guidelines were issued, I do not believe that the planners really contemplated this intensity and this tempo of operational service. As I have said, I believe that the fundamental problem is that the Army is too small for the many tasks being laid upon it. I urge the Minister to consider this point very carefully. I have no doubt that any such study would cause all sorts of problems in the Budget, and certainly with the Treasury, but it needs to be properly addressed and thought through.
	As I have confessed, some of the problems go back to my time as Chief of the General Staff and Chief of the Defence Staff when the operational guidelines given for such studies as Front Line First and the defence cost studies led to hasty decisions which had significant consequences on the effectiveness of our Armed Forces. The cuts were made before the assumptions could be properly tested.
	I now turn to procurement and the forward equipment programme which is, of course, of the greatest importance to the fighting effectiveness of our Armed Forces. I know that at least one noble Lord will discuss that in some detail. I would also like to thank the Minister for what I know he is doing to grip the procurement programme. It is a hugely complex issue and I wish him well. Certainly, it is under-funded and in a muddle. I have a few random points or questions. I hope that the Minister will tell us today what is being done about improving as a matter of the utmost urgency the replacements for some of the vulnerable vehicles that our soldiers have to use in Iraq. In addition, what steps are being taken to improve the security of our helicopters and the air transport fleet?
	Moving on from urgent operational requirements, will the Minister give us a progress report on the future rapid effect system vehicle, which was given a very high profile as a vehicle, was critically important to the re-organised, more mobile Army, and was a key element of the Strategic Defence Review in 1998? I could be wrong, but I understand that no prototype has been designed, yet this vehicle is due in service in five years' time—in 2012. In the same year, the Lynx and Puma helicopters are due to come out of service. Both are critical for the Army's and the Royal Air Force's operational effectiveness. What progress is being made on the selection of their replacements?
	In addition, what are the Minister's views on the Defence Procurement Agency? Is it on top of its job? Is it properly structured? Is there a strong and powerful enough single service voice, really able to influence the programme at key stages in the design and procurement process? Surely, there can be no doubt in anyone's mind that, given the operational pressure on our Armed Forces, they need a future equipment programme that is effective, credible and delivered on time. That would send an important signal that the Government understand the operational pressure on our Armed Forces and why they need to be given the best possible equipment available. I should make it clear, as I have said before, that some of the problems started before the present Government took over. Again, I thank the Minister for what I know he is doing to grip this huge, complex and difficult area.
	My final point concerns the mood and morale of our Armed Forces. They are a very special group of people, for whom I have a great affection. I am beginning to see for different reasons early signs of the sort of mood of unhappiness that developed in the Armed Forces in the late 1970s when, due to a number of reasons but mainly because of very poor pay and what became known as the "Irishman's pay rise", morale was very low. That was when Northern Ireland was going through a particularly difficult stage. I was responsible for running a course which all the captains in the Army attended. There was very serious talk about federations and unions. We are beginning to hear similar talk now.
	Before people say that it is a good idea to have a federation or union, we need to analyse why they are saying that. My view is that if you produce a federation or union you will undermine the ethos of our Armed Forces and the chain of command and, very importantly, you will totally distort the relationship that should exist throughout that chain of command. That chain of command includes not just the military but Ministers and civil servants. The latter have a very real duty not only to serve Ministers, but to make sure that they are looking after the interests of our servicemen and servicewomen, Regular and Reservist, and their families. Before any hasty decisions are made, we really need to think through why there is a growing demand for some form of federation or union. I say, solve the problem and the need disappears, as it did in 1980.
	In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will understand that I am not trying to score cheap political points. The issues that I am trying to articulate are ones that give me great cause for concern because I believe that our Armed Forces are not being given the assets or budget that they need. I am convinced that the Army is too small and that the Armed Forces overall are significantly under-funded. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Truscott: My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. I congratulate the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, on initiating this debate and on his wide-ranging and erudite contribution. Of course, as a former CDS he has enormous experience in this field and is greatly respected in your Lordships' House.
	Her Majesty's Armed Forces are facing great challenges across the world with immense professionalism, courage and dedication and deserve your Lordships' utmost support. In defending the United Kingdom and its interests and strengthening international peace and stability, the Armed Forces are truly a force for good in the world. I would argue that that is undoubtedly the case in the Balkans, Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan, where we have been engaged in rebuilding democratic states from the ashes if not of totalitarianism then at least of extremely repressive regimes. To cut and run in Iraq and Afghanistan would be a betrayal not only of the peoples concerned, millions of whom have taken part in democratic elections at great risk to themselves, but also of our Armed Forces, who have already sacrificed so much.
	I shall focus attention on developments in procurement policy. Our Armed Forces have undoubtedly undergone a significant transformation since the 1998 Strategic Defence Review and subsequent White Papers. A key factor has been a substantial equipment programme to reconfigure our forces underpinned by real and sustained increases in the defence budget from each spending review since 1997. Like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, in this regard, I congratulate my noble friend on the publication last year of the Defence Industrial Strategy, which he expertly crafted and which has been warmly welcomed by the defence industry.
	The DIS recognises the important role in the defence industry in delivering capability but also recognises that the industry must change to meet the evolving demands of our Armed Forces. The DIS outlined several important themes: the complex, technical, challenging high-value systems currently being planned will last for many years, sometimes decades. Industry must therefore change its focus from the design and build of new platforms and systems to the upgrade and support of existing and future equipment. Specifically, the DIS identifies the need to maintain onshore capability in key areas of production, security of supply and support services.
	The DIS has been so warmly welcomed in industry circles especially because it outlined the defence capabilities that we need to retain in the UK and how these capabilities must be sustained. It was acknowledged that the MoD and the Government needed to ensure that the UK had the ability to continue to operate our equipment in a way that maintained our technological sovereignty and to protect our national security. In that regard, I also commend my noble friend on how he has insisted that the purchase of the JSF aircraft from the United States must be accompanied by the necessary transfer of technology.
	As the DIS has committed the Government to greater transparency over their future indicative spending plans, industry will be able to make important investment and restructuring decisions with greater confidence. Like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, I note the report in the Financial Times today on a possible merger between the DPA and the DLO, which in my view may herald improved co-operation and coherence in the procurement field. But obviously we shall have to wait for the announcement.
	Particularly important is the end to the old boom-and-bust industrial cycle and a recognition that through-life capability will depend on long-term partnering and alliances based on value-for-money solutions for the Armed Forces. Her Majesty's Government have moved away from the predominant view of the 1980s and early 1990s that the UK's manufacturing base did not matter and was somehow inferior to the City and the service sector. I look forward to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Levene of Portsoken, on that issue, given his great experience in this field.
	Unbridled competition as an end in itself, with no thought for the need to maintain a strategic defence industrial base, is, mercifully, consigned to history. There need be no conflict between achieving value for money and preserving the technological skills that are vital for this country's national security. I also welcome the Government's recognition that, when it comes to procurement, all sides need to effectively quantify risk and reduce it by placing it where it can be managed most effectively, something not always achieved in the past. The balance of risk between supplier and customer will, it appears, be more evenly spread in the future, even if it means stopping a project before Main Gate.
	There has been much discussion in the press of defence procurement cost overruns, but the National Audit Office has shown, with its report on 19 major procurement programmes, that the UK has a relatively good record in what remains a challenging area. The main cause of cost overruns is the complexity of new weapons systems. An advanced fighter such as the US's FA-22, for example, must be manufactured to exact tolerances to preserve its stealth capabilities and run by software that has millions of lines of code.
	Britain has done well out of defence research. A recent expert study by Andrew Middleton and Steven Bowns showed that of 10 leading nations, the UK is second only to the US on the military equipment quality curve. The UK's defence equipment is nearly 80 per cent as good as that of the United States, which spends 10 times as much as this country does. The study also showed that if we let up and spent less on defence research, we would rapidly slip down the ranks of defence nations. The Minister has indicated that the MoD's policy on research and technology has yet to be finessed. I hope he continues to give R&T the priority it deserves, and that he will come back to that issue when he winds up this debate.
	I further welcome the relaunch of the masters degree in defence administration, the MBA (Defence), to be taught jointly by the Royal Military College of Science and Cranfield University School of Management. It will help to ensure that when MoD staff engage in discussion with defence equipment suppliers, those who have gone on the course will have a better understanding of the financial, economic, marketing and operation management issues that affect the defence sector. It will also enable the MoD to achieve the best value for money for the taxpayer. At the end of the day it will be the task of the MoD and HMG to ensure that our Armed Forces have the kit they need to do the job, on time and at reasonable cost, while at the same time preserving our technological sovereignty and a viable defence manufacturing base, including a thriving aerospace and shipbuilding sector. It is a huge challenge, but one that this Government must meet head on.

Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, like every noble Lord I must begin my remarks by thanking the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, for introducing this debate. I declare a modest interest as an adviser to one of the smaller defence manufacturing companies not particularly involved in the matters we are discussing today.
	Many years ago I spent some time as a junior Minister at the Ministry of Defence, sitting mostly at the feet of the noble Lord, Lord Levene, as the Minister for Defence Procurement that I then was. I also learnt a great deal from the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Craig and Lord Inge, the latter of whom at the time, as I recall, was a lowly Major-General commanding the No. 2 Infantry Division in York. During the course of his remarks, the noble and gallant Lord referred to the importance of the reserves and the Territorial Army. Indeed, the Royal Auxiliary Air Force had a role in the division he commanded, whose principal role was deploying to Germany in times of war. I remember being briefed in detail on that role by the noble and gallant Lord, and I am grateful to him for that.
	I want to confine my brief remarks to some philosophical questions, rather than the detailed procurement matters to which the noble and gallant Lord referred, and to which I dare say the noble Lord, Lord Levene, will refer in a moment.
	It has been the policy of successive Governments for as far back as most of us can remember that our defence posture should be one of deterrence. I very much support that philosophy. In the very early days of our deterrent posture immediately after the Second World War, when nuclear weapons were in their infancy, I am told that we had a tripwire policy. Potential aggressors had only to put their foot across the line and we would perhaps deploy nuclear weapons in response.
	More recently a much more sophisticated approach of flexible response has been adopted, which I support very strongly. In that context we now have to consider whether we are to continue our deterrent policy, whether we are to continue our independent deterrent policy and whether we are to continue our independent nuclear deterrent policy. I believe that the answer is very strongly yes to all those propositions. That, indeed, is, I believe, the policy of Her Majesty's present Government, which, again, I strongly support; that is, the policy, not the Government.
	We are now faced with the prospect of the Trident system coming towards the end of its life. In the offices which I once held I was responsible for at least considering the detail of bringing the Trident system into service. It has served us well and will, indeed, serve us well for a few more years yet. But given the time it takes to devise and procure a replacement, we need to start thinking about that now.
	There are at least three alternatives to be considered. The first is an air-launched replacement. I do not believe that any serious commentator now believes that that would be the right solution. It was, indeed, the first of our nuclear deterrents. I understand that long before my time the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, played a very distinguished part in deploying the air-launched nuclear deterrent of those years. Aircraft would be gravely vulnerable in the modern circumstance, even deploying—as I presume they would—some stand-off weapon, and so would their bases. I suggest that it is widely believed that an air launch solution should not be further considered in any detail.
	What about a land-based solution? For many years at least part of the United States' deterrent comprised a land-based system, deployed from deep silos in various parts of the United States. It has the advantage that very large missiles can easily be operated from deep land-based silos, but they, too, can be vulnerable in times of tension and in other circumstances. I do not think that anybody now seriously proposes an intercontinental land-based solution. However, land-based solutions are not necessarily confined to intercontinental missiles. Much more recently—indeed, during my time at the Ministry of Defence—the United States deployed land-based cruise missiles in the United Kingdom in response to the new SS20 threat which emerged at about that time. Your Lordships will recall, as I do only too well, the difficulty that surrounded Greenham Common and Molesworth in the deployment of that land-based cruise missile system.
	I submit that the final option is the submarine-based system, which we have deployed with such success for 30 years or more now—first, the Polaris system and more recently the Trident system. Both have served us well. There could, indeed, be variations on a submarine-based system. The intercontinental missile system—Trident and Polaris were such systems—could be supplemented, or may even be replaced, by a cruise missile system launched from submarine torpedo tubes. That has some attraction still, but I believe that an intercontinental missile system is what we shall need.
	The reason for that is that, with present technology at least, a cruise missile system would need to be effected to be able to deploy not only in the deep waters of the great oceans but much closer to the land masses, and therein lies a risk. The risk is that in all the years that we have been deploying a submarine-based, intercontinental system, we have been able to say—and I hope we can still say—that the system has never been detected or compromised while on patrol. That is a crucially important consideration, and I hope the noble Lord when he replies can confirm that that continues to be the position. It is crucially important that the missile-carrying submarines operate secretly and covertly and are not subject to any risk of detection. If one is considering the possibility of a cruise missile system launched from submarine torpedo tubes, there is a risk that the submarines would have to deploy too close to the continental masses for comfort.
	That, I suppose, underlines the regret that I have expressed to your Lordships before that we decided a few years ago to abandon the conventional submarines that we then possessed, the Type 2400. We had just four of those, but they have recently been disposed of to, I understand, another country. It is a pity that we no longer have conventional submarines for operating in comparatively shallow waters. That means that the nuclear submarines presumably have to operate in areas such as the Gulf, and that needs special care.
	I summarise by saying that I hope and believe that we will continue to maintain our deterrent posture. I hope and believe that we will continue to maintain our independent nuclear deterrent posture and that it will be a submarine-based, intercontinental missile-based system.

Lord Dykes: My Lords, inevitably the subject matter today has a difficult, very complex, sombre and serious side. I deliberately use the word "pleasure" in following comprehensively able speeches so far—much more expert than mine—and I express my nervousness at following three distinguished military experts who know a lot about these subjects. I well remember that my very brief brush with the Ministry of Defence was becoming a humble PPS in the Ministry of Defence several weeks after Parliament started after the June 1970 election. Following the correct exhortation of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, that military people should keep politicians at bay, I was briefly given a basement office in the MoD without any windows to underline the humble role of politicians in comparison with the military experts and officials.
	I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, wholeheartedly for his choice of debate and the very dignified way in which he enunciated some of the enormous anxieties about the present situation. There are so many urgent and worrying questions to be dealt with in virtually all aspects of prevailing UK defence policy. It seems ironical after the 1998 review that we have to say that, but because the world has changed so much in such a short time it remains the daunting reality that we now face. I will concentrate briefly on a number of special areas where there are inevitably, in this context, more questions than answers. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for his comments, which I entirely agree with, on the procurement problems and on the nuclear question, which I will also refer to in the time available. I wholeheartedly support what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, said—I am sure that it will arise again and again in this debate—about the inadequacy of some of our procurements and the inadequacy and age of some of the equipment that our Armed Forces have to use to deal with their current responsibilities.
	I am advised that relations between the European Union and the United States are now much better than they were three years ago. This, too, has an impact on the policy formulation and the defence postures of this country by at least indirect implication, and possibly more than that. However, relations between senior officials and military people in the various European Union defence secretariats and agencies and NATO in Brussels need far more effort before the mutual tensions subside. On the creation of both detailed sub-aspects of policy formation and the grand strategy, we can perhaps agree that UK defence policy is unavoidably and starkly affected by this illegal invasion of Iraq by Britain and America—made legal subsequently, but illegal at the time and with many illegal implications even now. Afghanistan is an ominous and separate problem arising and is causing more and more anxiety.
	We now see a total picture where our Armed Forces are sorely stretched beyond all reasonable demands by the foolish geopolitical errors of inexperienced members of the Government, from the Prime Minister downwards. It was bad enough to have to endure the United States, with perhaps one of the most disappointing American Administrations since before the Second World War and the depression, rampaging into Iraq without proper long-term planning and preparation and no sense of intelligent statecraft, let alone the United Kingdom Government doing the same thing for reasons that have still not been properly justified or explained and which look all too much like self-induced delusionism about the defence capabilities of Britain, which we all accept is a very small country and economic base for all such tasks.
	Nothing makes our impressive soldiers, sailors and air staff more cynical than when politicians pay them endless fulsome tribute—they do so even when they are tragically killed in a dubious cause—but insist that they still fulfil their tasks with woefully inadequate equipment. I am sad that I have to say that repeatedly. Britain is a small country on its own. It surely behoves us, therefore, to cut our cloth accordingly and not to posture about here, there and everywhere in some quasi-imperialist adventurism for apparent reasons of doubtful prestige.
	Not only is the situation in Iraq dire in all aspects, but Afghanistan looks more and more ominous. The so-called war on terror needs to be fought with high technology, intelligence and infiltration, and subversion by using sincere local people, not by the obsession of the United States with bombing from a high altitude and killing mostly civilians in the process, and by hapless US and UK deployment of troops in uniform, who will increasingly be sitting ducks unless they stay in green zone-type fastnesses and never go out into the countryside.
	We handled Northern Ireland with much more intelligent solutions. Yes, it was closer to home and thus easier in one sense but, equally, it was much more difficult than the far-flung problems that we now face. Why have we in this country lost the capacity for geo-strategic common sense? We had a great reputation in the past; we need to rebuild it to restore the morale of our Armed Forces. Far from reducing the excessive tasks for those fighting forces and the back-up personnel in all sections, we are adding to them. Morale is seriously affected by that depressing outlook.
	The sharp fall in TAVR renewals is an ominous sign, as is the stress counselling for more and more Regulars and the decisions of soldiers and others to leave the forces earlier than expected. We also have the extra European tasks that were featured on page 41 of the Government's January 2006 White Paper. Although those tasks are still in the early planning stages, and therefore at the disposal of officials at a high level and of senior military personnel, gradually greater numbers of military personnel on the ground will be drawn in by them. The whole burden will increase at a time when the pressures are already becoming literally unbearable. Morale and self-confidence in the Armed Forces is at its lowest ebb in the whole post-war period, with the exception of the Suez adventure, which was finally dealt with by what in those days were sensible objections by the United States.
	Other noble Lords will cite examples of poor equipment, some of which have been mentioned, and complex mistakes in specifications affecting many units' kit. Our men and women in the forces feel overstretched and overexploited by an irrationally aggressive Government. The Cold War ended, but the Government perhaps decided that there should be new enemies on the horizon. Obviously al-Qaeda is an enemy in the new, modern, difficult-to-grasp sense, as is the Taliban, but where is the serious military threat to us from anywhere in the world in the conventional sense—or the nuclear sense, as events now stand? There may be one in the future, but, right now, where is the threat to the existence of the United Kingdom? The answer is that there is not one.
	I hope that we are not now starting to call the Palestinians our enemies due to deplorable and tragic individual terrorist incidents there, which can be used as excuses for further procrastination as regards giving them their own sovereign state. Of course, as we constantly say, Hamas needs to recognise Israel and its security and safety, but Israel too needs to obey international law in all the ways that the UN has repeatedly called for.
	Increasingly, surely our role has to be limited to the natural defence of the people here at home—the homeland—in case of future threats, as well as being involved in the international forces of peacekeeping and help to indigenous populations, if they genuinely seek our help. This should be decided more and more in the future, as it already is, through our membership of the various collective treaty agencies. That is the modern trend. We cannot any longer be on our own.
	Although it sounds hyperbolic, the European-wide polls held last week and the week before among the public in European Union countries, which suggested genuine anxieties about US actions as a threat to peace, need to be heeded by the British Government, even though they appear to be an unfair attack on the Americans. The USA has not really succeeded in winning over the ordinary citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan and the various countries in Arabia, and the worries about this failure to appeal to those people spill over to us here.
	I turn finally to the vexed question looming up at the other end of the scale—the grand strategy; the massive equipment—which is of our nuclear deterrent and the future procurement problems involved in renewing our nuclear arsenal. We start off with the extraordinary news that the by now almost self-appointed next leader of the Labour Party and Government is pledging to find the replacement for Trident, to be commissioned in a few years' time and completed by 2024. Was this a combination of warding off his own sceptical Back-Bench colleagues in another place and anticipating the report of the Defence Committee on this theme? I do not think that it is right for any Government just to make this decision before Parliament and the nation have had a full and lengthy opportunity to consider all the options.
	The conclusion, after all, may indeed be that we should maintain our existing capacity or upgrade to the modernised replacement, to which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, referred in detail. However, the end of the Cold War, if coupled with a successful modernised and renewed non-proliferation treaty, could offer alternative prospects without in any way undermining this nation's safety and future welfare. Would it be a submarine system, as now, or air-launched missiles? The debate is just starting, and much more detailed thought needs to be given to those matters.
	However, most worrying of all is the notion that we could still rely totally on the United States for the new system. Although the warhead could be British-made, the so-called independent deterrent would still be something of a continuing myth, except ironically for the French—President Chirac was making strange bellicose noises at the west coast navy base in France six weeks ago.
	Are we not, after all, both legally and for practical reasons obliged to honour our commitments to the NPT, both in its present form and perhaps in a new form if that should be necessary? It is astonishing how we fail to perceive the accusation of hypocrisy from such quarters as the non-nuclear powers, who are watching what we and other nuclear countries are up to very carefully, when we have plainly not met all our duties under the treaty but continue to exhort other countries such as Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan to do the necessary under it.
	In fact, the non-proliferation side of the equation has been more successful than what has been achieved by the old nuclear club although, to be fair, the United Kingdom has made some important reductions in its arsenal. But the club members are legally committed under the NPT to move to the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. Russia has some 5,000 warheads, some of which are possibly in a questionable maintenance state; America has more or less the same; and France and the UK together have some 5 per cent of those unnecessarily massive arsenals. The START II and START III negotiations and agreements faltered badly and have not achieved their objectives at all.
	In the debate introduced here on 6 June by my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby, Hans Blix was mentioned and reference was made to some 27,000 nuclear weapons that are still scattered around the globe. The report sent to Kofi Annan by Hans Blix's Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission strongly emphasised a call on Britain and France to reduce their existing arsenals. This House will return to these solemn challenges on many future occasions, I am sure. The debate is now on.

Lord Levene of Portsoken: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble and gallant friend Lord Inge for initiating this debate. I declare an interest as chairman of General Dynamics UK and president—very much an honorary title—of the Defence Manufacturers Association, although it is certainly not my intention to speak on their behalf today. Perhaps a more pertinent interest is a past one: that of Chief of Defence Procurement in the Ministry of Defence for six years from 1985 to 1991.
	My noble and gallant friend Lord Inge has spoken most eloquently and with the greatest authority on operational issues. I would like to concentrate on that part of the debate referring to procurement. I do not propose today to indulge in large doses of reminiscences or nostalgia, but I believe that a certain amount of scene setting is necessary.
	When I took on the procurement function in the Ministry of Defence in 1985, the Cold War was still at its height, new technology was badly needed and we were passing through a period of badly flawed projects: the Nimrod AEW aircraft, the Spearfish torpedo, the Foxhunter radar—affectionately known as the Blue Circle radar because its non-availability necessitated its replacement in the nose of the Tornado aircraft by a lump of cement—to name but three. These projects were overrunning not only in time, with no end in sight, but also in cost.
	Noble Lords may well ask why there was a huge cost overrun when equipment was not being delivered. The answer is both simple and surprising. Under the infamous cost-plus contractual arrangements then in place, there was, astonishingly, no requirement to deliver in order to be paid. In fact, the absurdity of the arrangement was that the greater the cost incurred, the more the contractor would be paid. His costs were met plus a profit on those costs—hence the terminology.
	My terms of reference from the then Prime Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, and the then Defence Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, were clear and concise: "Your job is to procure the best possible equipment for the UK Armed Forces on the best possible terms. If you can buy it in the UK, that's fine; if you can't, so be it". That is a very clear instruction, as noble Lords might agree.
	The cost-plus system had evolved from the preferred-supplier route. Clearly, it did not work; it had become too preferred and too cosy. Drastic surgery followed—painful but necessary. Over a short period, cost-plus contracts were virtually eliminated, unsuccessful projects were scrapped, large amounts of money on sunk costs were written off, and new contracts were awarded—yes, sometimes in the United States, which at least refrained from commenting, "I told you so".
	At the end of my six years, the National Audit Office reported that of a total of 37 projects started in the last five years, each valued in excess of £100 million, the cost to date was just under 1 per cent less than the department had estimated when the orders had first been placed; 28 of the 37 projects were expected to be completed on time; one was ahead of schedule; and, of the rest, only three had delays that were expected to exceed one year and none of those delays would result in additional costs falling on the department.
	So then what happened? I drafted what I intended to say today just a few days ago, sitting in the garden of the British ambassador's residence in Budapest. During my term of office, no senior MoD official would even have been allowed to travel to that country, but today Hungary, like so many other of the nations of eastern Europe, is not only a member, with us, of the European Union, but also a member of NATO. After just 15 years, we regard that as the norm, but 15 years ago it would have been considered a fantasy.
	There was immediate talk of the peace dividend. Defence budgets were cut, requirements slashed and new projects severely reduced. The result was a shrinking defence industry in Europe, less work to go round, contractors merging or going out of business, and a reduction in competition. That is the first time today that I have mentioned the word "competition"—a word that my critics have used to categorise the essence of my term in office, and which they have often linked with the word "confrontation". I shy away from neither. The only way to break out of the cosy relationship was with the harsh wind of competition; if, at times, that resulted in confrontation, that was inevitable. There are many such issues that are not really party political but present the same problems with the same limited solutions to a Government of any complexion. I mean by that a shrinking market and industry, an increased likelihood of needing to look outside our domestic base and an inherent threat to domestic job prospects and technology.
	At this point, I must link back to the real concerns so eloquently expressed by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, and others, many of whom I had the privilege of working with at that time. We must not forget the mission statement that I was given: to equip the Armed Forces with the best possible equipment on the best possible terms. This is the rub that confronts every Administration, whether they wish to state it publicly or not. Most do not. Is the prime purpose of the £10 billion defence procurement budget to equip the Armed Forces or to maintain the domestic industry and its capability?
	Well, what is the answer? Maybe it is, "It depends whom you're talking to". That may sound cynical, but I am not sure that it is all that inaccurate. Of course the budget is to be used to equip the Armed Forces but, at the same time, every Government wish to maintain jobs and technology at home, as they should. Is there an answer that meets both requirements to perfection? No, but then there never was. The emphasis that swings backwards and forwards over the years between competition to achieve value for money on the one hand, via "smart procurement"—whatever that meant—and "partnering based on trust", which I think is what we used to call "the preferred-supplier route", on the other, illustrates the dilemma perfectly. But I say in all humility that if you look at the last few NAO reports on the MoD major projects statement, you will see a less satisfactory outturn, year after year, than that which I mentioned earlier. The question that I just posed therefore appears in sharp relief.
	The Minister has looked at this through a fresh pair of eyes as a successful industrialist untainted by many years in the defence industry. His approach bears similarities to that of the late Lord Rayner, who was the very first Chief of Defence Procurement and came from the quintessential commercial-cum-partnering stable of Marks & Spencer. The Minister unveiled his defence industrial strategy to us last year. It has a great deal to commend it, but depends in part on the extent to which the industry is willing to be a totally open partner, placing its cards face up on the table.
	I have spent many years in this industry, first on one side of the table and then on the other. The industry's leaders are there to deliver successful performance to their shareholders and, of course, good products to their customers. But they are, first and foremost, commercial, entrepreneurial animals, and I say this having been one myself. It would be naive in the extreme to believe that their first thought on waking every day is, "Am I being a true, even-handed and fair partner to my customer?" rather than, "Are the analysts, my shareholders and my board going to be satisfied with this quarter's results?". We must always remember that the purpose of being in business is to run a profitable enterprise. As long as we all recognise that and do not persuade ourselves otherwise, then we stand a chance of a reasonable result. But that means tough bargaining, tough decisions, weighing the options and the judicious use of—if I dare use the word—competition.
	Perhaps, though, our best hope today lies in a dramatic change, both in the way in which industry operates and the way in which the Armed Forces work—I know that the Minister is well inclined towards that change. It means the end of the user buying the equipment up front and then using it, maintaining it, fuelling it, loading it and replacing it. It means, as has been mentioned, the blurring, if not perhaps merging, of the procurement with the through-life maintenance, and even some of the non-combat operating functions. That solution was mooted, I remember, in 1984, but was immediately turned down as being out of the question. It is the equivalent of airlines wet-leasing their assets and relying on trusted suppliers to keep them fully operational, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Of course, it can be made to work commercially, and it does so—with the airlines, often with the same suppliers as the Ministry of Defence already uses.
	There is one crucial difference, however. Today, most airlines are no longer state-owned and they contract with one or other of the two major world suppliers, conveniently located on either side of the Atlantic, which—so the theory runs—keep each other honest. Maybe if Governments were permitted to act as impartially as this, we, too, could achieve the perfect solution. But until we can get rid of those awful words "juste retour", we will remain adrift from such a solution.
	There is no perfect solution to the dilemma that I have outlined. We must ensure that we are constantly alert to steering away those charged with the responsibility of procurement from the Scylla of feather-bedding and overfeeding our industry and the Charybdis of driving them out of business.

Lord Luke: My Lords, I congratulate the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, on securing this debate. I shall focus on an area that can have a significant impact on recruitment and retention: Army housing.
	In every family, there is often a power behind the throne. If the family is unhappy, the solider will be unhappy and obviously concerned for their welfare. An individual with worries often becomes distracted, and this might affect his operational efficiency on active service in Iraq or Afghanistan.
	At the recent conference of the Army Families Federation, which I attended with some 200 wives of soldiers, one of the speakers from the federation highlighted the growing problem regarding Army accommodation:
	"Most families feel passionately about their homes, Army families perhaps more than most, since they can sometimes be the only stable thing in their lives. Their husbands or partners might be on operations abroad but their home is their base, the one concrete thing in an otherwise turbulent existence".
	Yet, throughout the world, British Army families are still faced with housing problems and increasing pressures. I am informed that Army family housing in Cyprus has lacked proper capital investment for a modernisation programme since 1955. However, I understand that new quarters are now proposed for the spring of next year. Can the Minister confirm that they will be built then?
	In the United Kingdom, a shortage of funding has meant that the 10-year upgrade programme promised post-Annington, in 1996, is looking less and less likely to be delivered. Meanwhile, last winter was one of the worst on record for Army housing repairs. There were six-month delays, or often a simple failure to address the problem. While I understand that the management restructuring of the Defence Estates Housing Directorate is ongoing, those trying to access the directorate report nothing but confusion, frustration and a sense of helplessness. That is not how we should treat the families of those who may be called on to make the ultimate sacrifice in the service of the nation.
	I am sure that I do not need to look far in this House to come across families who have had problems in the past with Army housing. Members of the AFF can provide personal anecdotes of moving into quarters with no heating, water or even cookers, or into some quarters that had not even been thoroughly cleaned. Repair appointments have not been met and there seems to be a chronic underestimate of the number of houses in poor condition. This can have only a negative impact on morale. Will the Minister undertake to improve the provision of professional advice on housing in information centres?
	It is not all doom and gloom on this issue, but there are significant concerns, which are clearly already starting to have an impact on our current retention, let alone new recruitment. The overall plea from the AFF at the conference was to ask the Government to take this opportunity to stop what it sees as an inexorable slide of the provision and maintenance of housing to becoming third or fourth rate.
	Members of the AFF are not asking for exceptional treatment; they are asking only that their unique circumstances be taken into consideration. They need a standard of housing that caters for the needs of the modern Army family and provides the cornerstone of their lives. As I have indicated, the conference thoroughly highlighted the great concern and, indeed, anger among many Army families. It was a pity that the Minister, having made his speech, dashed out without hearing any of the conference. I hope that the Minister in this House will take some time in his reply to inform the House what assessment his department has made of the standard of current housing for service families, what the estimated costs are to address the problems and whether Her Majesty's Government have any plans to do just that.
	In the current climate and circumstances, one cannot expect young Army families to be able to afford to buy their own home, even though they can expect to be less constantly moving than in the past. We should surely expect the Armed Forces to be able to provide decent housing, if only as an investment in their most important asset—the service men and women and their families.

Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, and congratulate him on opening this debate so well. I shall concentrate on a major topical procurement issue, following the interesting contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Dykes. Last week, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer commented about the future of the nuclear deterrent. During Prime Minister's Questions, the Prime Minister said,
	"the decision will have to be taken in this Parliament".—[Official Report, Commons, 21/6/06; col. 1315.]
	The Chancellor spoke of his support that same evening in his Mansion House speech. At yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions, the Prime Minister went further, saying that,
	"we will of course consult the House fully. The method of doing so will be announced at the time when we publish the White Paper".—[Official Report, Commons, 28/6/06; col. 253.]
	So both of them have reaffirmed their support for continuing our nuclear capability.
	Inevitably, our present system will, with the passage of time, reach a stage when its reliability can no longer be guaranteed. Although that is by no means imminent, long lead times mean that some decisions must be made quite soon if there is to be no break in capability. There are many aspects to consider before reaching such decisions. I can touch on only some of them.
	The first—it is obviously the key issue—is whether this country needs such a capability in future. Looking 30, 40 or more years ahead, it is impossible to forecast any set of circumstances in which the Government of the day would find such a potent capability vital. Trident was adopted in the early 1980s when our defence policy was concentrated on NATO and Europe. We did not foresee the end of the Cold War less than a decade away or our subsequent involvement in large-scale expeditionary warfare thousands of miles from these shores. The deterrent posture of the Cold War has little relevance today because changes in deployment and operation have been necessary. I cannot contemplate using nuclear weapons against a terrorist or largely asymmetric threat. If they could not be used, their deterrent effect is non-existent. Their use, or threat of use, must be for situations where national security is mortally threatened.
	I recall discussions from as long ago as 1989 with my then opposite number in the United States, Admiral Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which his firmly stated position was that any decision to use US nuclear weapons would be confined to dealing with a major threat to the security of the United States itself. Whatever the NATO rubric of an attack on one being deemed an attack on all, that would not, he said, guarantee the US using nuclear weapons on behalf of others in NATO, even the UK. Only if the threat was to the United States itself would their use be contemplated.
	Post Cold War, it is highly unlikely that the Crowe position on the use of US nuclear weapons will have changed. To rely on another nuclear-capable country, no matter how friendly, to come to our rescue by threatening, let alone using, nuclear force on our behalf is not realistic. If the threat we faced were seen as mortal to our security and way of life, only a national deterrent capability would be credible, and then only if underwritten by a realistic determination to be prepared to use it. It would also lack credibility to rely solely on a nuclear capability not backed by other military resources. Conventional military strength is an important part of a deterrent or counterforce posture, as are other non-military threats or actions in achieving a desired outcome. Conventional forces must therefore be maintained and, indeed, strengthened from today's levels that have been cut too far. Our conventional strength is now tied to a defence planning assumption that we would not become involved in major confrontation or conflict without strong allies. This dichotomy between major action only with allies and unilateral nuclear action if we face mortal danger nationally needs some explanation or elaboration that I hope Her Majesty's Government will provide.
	Another consideration about retaining a national nuclear capability is the degree to which it is seen and recognised to be independent. At the use, or threat-of-use, end, given the right security of communication, capability and national control is there. Reliance on others and their facilities beyond our shores for supply, maintenance, modification or repair has been cited as reasons for denying that Her Majesty's Government have true independence. But it is not credible to argue that no operational capability will be available, even when relying on offshore support, if Her Majesty's Government were ever to have to consider its use. The present combination of nationally provided warheads on US missiles does not deny Her Majesty's Government the possibility of independent use.
	Nevertheless, we must revisit the arguments that led to the adoption of the current procurement and support arrangements for Trident. Will the United States' view about this country retaining a nuclear capability with major assistance from it mesh with its revised global stance and ambitions? I believe that it will, although our recent experience over access to technology in the joint strike fighter that we are building with the Americans has not been a happy one.
	A further consideration is the invulnerability of the nuclear capability to pre-emptive attack and destruction. Until there is a breakthrough in underwater detection, the submarine and missile combination provides a high degree of protection and a high assurance that the capability would be available for use if necessary even if a surprise attack on it were ever attempted or contemplated.
	Less well protected would be land-based weapons or weapons relying on launch from aircraft platforms. There is potential scope for trading security from sabotage or attack with the relative lower cost of less invulnerable systems. This too must be examined. While a nuclear weapon has an awesome capability, it is in truth even more a political rather than a military weapon. So the politics of possession must also be weighed in the balance.
	The position of the United Kingdom in the United Nations and on the Security Council may in future depend on this country remaining in the nuclear nations' club. I leave it to others to weigh this argument, but it should not be overlooked in the process of the decision taking. No Act of Parliament is required for the Government to proceed to a replacement system. But, as Mr Straw said last Thursday in another place:
	"Decisions on Trident's replacement have yet to be taken. When they have been taken, they will be put to Parliament in a White Paper. I cannot anticipate at this stage the most appropriate form of debate, but it will be in a form that shows proper respect for the House".—[Official Report, Commons, 22/6/06; col. 1468.]
	I am certain that your Lordships would also insist on a debate in this House.
	I believe that the Government are right in principle to maintain an independent nuclear capability as insurance for the unforeseens and for the leverage it can provide. But it should be backed by a better level of conventional capability than we can deploy today. What form our nuclear capability should take needs much further knowledge-based discussion than has so far been possible in public.
	Noble Lords will have noted from Mr Straw's statement that the Government intend to reach decisions first, ahead of informed debate; that is to announce and defend, in the classic way adopted by all past governments on this issue. Perhaps the Minister would like to confirm this for the House.

Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I have a remarkably insecure feeling being sandwiched between two noble and gallant Lords. I was told that when you feel insecure you should ask questions; do not say anything, just ask yourself questions and see if you can get the answers. I begin with the classic questions "How?", "What?", "Who?", "When?" and "Where?". I am trying to apply them to the debate today.
	When did we move from the Ministry of War to the Ministry of Defence? Do you ever go to war these days? If so, are you going to defend interests, and, if so, whose interests? You ask yourself, "Who and what are we seeking to defend from who and what?". If you add in "Where?" life becomes much easier because of course we are going to be worldwide. The English language is the most important language. Three billion speak it as their first, second or third language or are learning it. We still have the Commonwealth, which occupies about 20 to 25 per cent of the surface of the Earth, and Her Majesty the Queen is often head of state. I was told that the Navy has the capability to fight a war further afield than anyone else—maybe 8,000 miles away from our shores.
	In preparing for this debate, I tried to think of what we are seeking to defend. Historically, we seek to defend our trade and free passage on the high seas or wherever in the world. Now I wonder when we went into Kosovo what we were seeking to defend. When we went to war with Iraq—we did go to war; and I will always defend the right of a Prime Minister of a country such as ours to go to war—what were we seeking to defend? When we go into Afghanistan, or wherever else in the world, what are we seeking to defend? Then, how long are we going to stay there?
	If I ask where the Calcutta Cup came from, your Lordships will automatically assume that it came from Calcutta. It did; it came from Calcutta when the British Army used to play rugby at the Ballygunge Cricket Club against the Scots. When the Scots were not enough, the Army played against the Irish and the Welsh as well. That meant that in order to develop a cricket and rugby team you had to have an Army force there for a long period of time. About the same time the Army moved to play rugby in Afghanistan, which meant the troops were there for a long time. Your Lordships will remember too that the Kandahar club, which moved to Wengen when they first started downhill racing, came from when the British Army skied in Kandahar.
	It was said that we have been in Kosovo for 17 years. I worry that we might well find that we are in Afghanistan for 17 years. I know that country quite well from my days when I chaired the Government's Middle East trade committee. I know Iraq for the same reason. I also know that these countries to some extent would like us to stay. For the Afghanis, it is a wonderful situation. The warlords used to fight each other and burn each other's crops. That was the punishment and the competition. Now their crops are defended by other armies and the drug pattern begins and grows on.
	For part of my life I had to deal with alternative crops for what we would call "the weed of wisdom", or ganga. That was extraordinarily difficult to advance. With greenhouses you might possibly be able to get flowers, fruit or vegetables, but this pattern of trade still followed. On flowers—I must not mention the countries—we found a major market for carnations which went into Miami extraordinarily cheaply. The whole crop was bought. They found a new way to preserve these flowers with a white substance which would absorb the moisture so that they could be distributed throughout the United States, and the white substance was cocaine. So if the Armed Forces are trying to defend drug production that is the wrong thing to do. It is another matter if they are there to keep peace, but it requires a considerable effort.
	In order to have the best Armed Forces in the world, which I believe we have, they must have the best equipment in the world. Of that there is no doubt. I had a word with some of my friends in the Health and Safety Executive. I asked what they would do if asked to write a report on the health and safety of the Armed Forces in the countries of the world. It is pretty frightening because you are not safe unless you have good equipment, and if the equipment does not match up to the quality of your people then something must be done about it. The relative cost is not that high. To me that should be a great priority. The facilities should be available to our Armed Forces.
	On capital equipment, it seems to me that at the moment the more expensive a bit of kit is, the more vulnerable it is to terrorist activity. Even an aircraft carrier now has to be defended by a vast fleet of ships if it is to go about its business. I recall during the Trafalgar Day celebrations it was once suggested that maybe an American carrier would come to the Solent. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, will remember this. I was told that, no, they had to have a very large cordon sanitaire around them, so they could not be in English waters because they would not necessarily be safe. As regards what might be able to bring down an Apache helicopter, I have even seen proposals and suggestions that a gaucho in America could bring one down with a bolero. So we have to say that our kit, unless it is expensive and part of a large team, is not safe.
	On fighting in the hills of Afghanistan or wherever, it is as well possibly to think of the First World War and how many people survived bombardments by being underground. I think that it is an extraordinarily difficult job.
	As regards the technologies and things that we can now find to determine where the enemy is, I turn to a small role I have as secretary of the Parliamentary Space Committee. I was not looking forward to spending three full days in the Senate in Brussels listening to people presenting the latest space technology, but I found that the development projections for satellites were extraordinarily interesting. They are the future for determining where an enemy is. The surveillance that comes from some of the newer kit is quite outstanding. So I asked: "How many satellites are there in space at the moment?". No one could tell me. They could tell me that there were 92,000 bits of metal floating around that might cause danger to someone at some time in the future. So I said that I had heard the pretty reasonable proposal that there were 573 and everyone said, "Yes, that is probably about right". I had actually made up that proposal myself. Then I wanted to know how many military satellites there were, what were their purpose and how long they would be up there for. They said that they could do almost anything in the world, but then I realised that it was not so long ago that two bright entrepreneurs decided that they would try to find the source of the Nile. Unfortunately, there was a death due to tribalism in Uganda, but none of the satellites could find the source of the Nile.
	Having spent some time considering developments, I realised that we should probably be spending more on satellite communication. Just out of interest, because, as your Lordships may know, we have Skynet 5 and Paradigm, which enable the Armed Forces to communicate with their families, I spoke to them yesterday. I said, "Can I say something about this?". They said, "We must check with the MoD first, because it is our client and might be upset". So perhaps the Minister might say something about Skynet 5 and our forces' ability to communicate. As that communication improves—it will be only a few years before, with a hand-held piece of metal with a screen on it, we will be able to communicate worldwide without wires—we should devote a little more attention to space.
	Our space budget is half that of Italy, which is half that of Germany, which is half that of France. I do not know as much as I would like about this, but I asked: "Is it possible to disable a satellite?" They said, "Probably; what would you suggest?". I said, "We used to have anti-radar stuff during the war. We dropped silver paper out of aeroplanes to destroy signals. Would it be possible to drop silver paper or metallic sand around satellites?". The answer was yes. Have we given some thought to what happens if satellites are disabled and what is their role in future?
	I am not sure where we go from here. We have 20,000 troops in Germany, 8,000 in Iraq and 1,500 in Afghanistan. If we need to be able to deploy more, we know that we have that capability. We know that we will have new aircraft carriers but, to me, above all else, we must equip our forces here and abroad to the highest standards—at least as high as their capabilities.

Lord Boyce: My Lords, I, too, welcome this debate and the opportunity to raise further the profile of our Armed Forces. I recognise that such an opportunity occurred last week in the Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill, but it is good to be able to reflect more specifically on the operational tempo that our sailors, soldiers and airmen are being asked to sustain, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.
	Attention on our Armed Forces today tends, not unreasonably, to be focused on the high-profile land operations in those two theatres, but myriad other defence tasks are being done, not least by maritime and air units in support of the Middle East operations. I mention for example the regeneration of the Iraqi Navy by the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines in Umm Qasr, which receives little if any publicity but is a real success story.
	Wherever one looks, our servicemen and servicewomen are unquestionably busy. In particular, their task in the difficult Middle East environment in which they are operating—both in terms of weather and the nature of opposition forces—is undoubtedly made tougher by the fact that they find themselves on the one hand pitted against hostile elements who have no concept of playing by any sort of rules and, on the other, by a sometimes hostile British media if our people are not perceived to be obeying every letter of the law and beyond. All that in a campaign that does not enjoy popular support.
	What sustains our service people? It is undoubtedly their training, their professionalism and their esprit de corps and, in theory, the knowledge that their well-being and their interests are being properly safeguarded back home.
	I say "in theory" because practice does not always bear that out, which brings me on to resources. On that point that you will see a weariness and scepticism in the eyes of those on the front line because they know that the front line today is underfunded and no amount of calming "lines to take" given to Ministers cuts any ice with those in operational units who look at their broken kit and know that it will not be repaired because the supply line is bankrupt.
	The fact is that, in the round, our Armed Forces are operating well above the level expected and resourced for under defence planning assumptions. Lack of adequate funding is hurting. The Minister will no doubt claim how well the Armed Forces are doing under this Government, but we all know that defence spending has fallen from 2.6 per cent to 2.2 per cent of GDP in the last few years—no doubt, to an extent, a victim of the Ministry of Defence's own success at delivering at the front end, being a department delivering substantial efficiencies and providing best practice across government—unlike some other government departments, where failure is rewarded with more money.
	On a strategic level, it is that lack of money for running and operational costs, primarily in the support area, that no doubt lay behind the ill-advised decision to slash the destroyer/frigate force by 20 per cent a couple of years ago. It is ill-advised because the destroyer/frigate is the workhorse of the fleet and its deployability, reach and endurance provides a keystone to our defence policy and its expeditionary and global aspirations. Or it should do, but our force is spread too thinly—thinner still if we consider those who are not at the defence planning assumption required states of readiness. I shall say more about that in a minute. How can one ship sensibly manage to patrol the Caribbean, the west coast of Africa and the south Atlantic?
	On the subject of the destroyer/frigate force, and looking to the future procurement programme, what can the Minister tell us about the total number of Type 45 destroyers that we are to have and when? Also, can he say whether there is sufficient provision in the programme for an orderly replacement of the Type 23 frigates, whose end-of-life dates are now well inside the planning horizon? I really hope that it is understood that we are standing into danger if we continue to fail to provide a capable escort force commensurate with our foreign and defence policy aims.
	The Minister may want to reflect on how the dwindling naval force levels of this nation, with its great maritime reputation, will be perceived on the world stage, where there is now a serious debate about the need for a multinational, multidisciplinary, civil/military 1,000-ship navy to deal with the global problems of maritime security and to provide the geographical spread of effort that the problem demands.
	I return to underfunding, an effect of which is especially noticeable in the shortage of cash to support the front line on a day-to-day basis. If the Minister does not accept this, perhaps he can explain why, for example, the Royal Navy has now undergone two years of reduced support. By the way, that is a policy under which, if you are broken you don't get fixed unless you are designated to be at the very highest level of readiness. There have been two years of reduced support period in an attempt to bring down the cost of front-line support. Recovery from that institutionalised unreadiness and regeneration from it will be a long-term process, the full implications of which are not yet fully understood.
	Meanwhile, the shortage of money to support the fleet means that a significant number of ships are not at their required defence planning assumption states of readinesss. That is bad for fighting effectiveness because ships' companies are not properly trained because their equipment is either not there or not working for them to train on. It is also bad for morale because our professional sailors take no joy from knowing that they are under-trained—which, incidentally, can hold up their promotion—and because it is demotivating to be in a unit that cannot do what it is designed to do. It is further demotivating for technicians when they see their working kit being stripped out to service a higher priority unit—appropriately known as "store robbing". I should stress that there are parallel examples in the Army and Air Force.
	Resourcing of the future procurement programme is equally shaky—and that is before the outcome of spending round 2007 starts to fall round our ears. The Minister will no doubt not wish to comment on last week's Evening Standard article claiming that the Treasury is warning that the defence budget will have to be cut to the tune of £1 billion. It would be very nice to hear him say that it is not true.
	On the other hand, it was certainly most encouraging to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer extolling the virtues of defence in promoting stability in his speech at the Mansion House last week as being,
	"strong in defence and fighting terrorism, upholding NATO, supporting our Armed Forces at home and abroad, and retaining our independent nuclear deterrent".
	What a pity such stirring words are not carried over to resourcing properly our Armed Forces, which provide such a major contribution to the global stability that he so rightly craves. Perhaps the Minister will say how the Chancellor of the Exchequer's sentiments square with the statements purported to have come from the Treasury, which I have just mentioned.
	En passant, can the Minister reassure the House that the money for our independent deterrent, which the Chancellor has implied will be replaced, will not be taken from the already underfunded future equipment programme? Were that to happen, another major programme would have to be cancelled to compensate. That in turn would seriously compromise, if not derail, the viability of our defence policy.
	Given the high level of commitments that we are experiencing, it is important more than ever to give attention to sustaining morale—something to which my noble and gallant friend has already alluded. I shall cover just one aspect of that. Morale is fed as much by external as by internal publicity, and the external publicity—public relations at the Ministry of Defence—is bad. Why? I believe it is to no small extent due to the decision taken by the Secretary of State for Defence two years ago to disband the posts of the directors of public relations—or corporate communications, to use the then vernacular. Will the Minister say whether these posts are to be reinstated so that we can regain the confidence of our service people that their spokesman, who manages the defence and media interface, knows what he is talking about? Incidentally, the move would also be thoroughly welcomed by responsible journalists, who would not have as interlocutor a civil servant whose aim is to protect the interests of Ministers and not those of our servicemen, even if such an interlocutor knew what he was talking about.
	The servicemen and servicewomen are doing their best for their country. You cannot do better than put yourself in harm's way, as our soldiers, sailors and airmen are regularly required to do. I am afraid that neither they nor I can detect that the Government are matching their commitment to the budget given to defence.

Lord Owen: My Lords, we have now heard three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff give very sombre warnings, not only about future procurement but, in a particularly interesting speech on Afghanistan given by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, about the strategic evaluation of the situation in that particularly vexed and difficult country. I greatly regret that we are not having before the Summer Recess a full debate on the strategic implications on Iraq and Afghanistan. The Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Garden, was awaited avidly by many of us on these Benches who wanted to contribute, but I gather that we can go wider in this debate. I certainly intend to do so.
	As we have heard from those three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff, using words which they weighed carefully, we face considerable—I would say unprecedented—levels of anxiety in the Navy, the Army and the Air Force. More or less every month, detailed reports in books—the most recent one was Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq—and many different analyses emerge about the extraordinary incompetence that has been demonstrated in the operation in Iraq. You have to go back to Gallipoli and the Dardanelles to find incompetence perceived as such a major factor in military operations.
	I do not think we can continue under the present situation. We have a new Leader of the Opposition, who is not committed, as in the past, and who can look afresh at these issues, and we have a new leader of the Liberal Democrats, who can look at these questions. There is now an overriding case to establish an inquiry that is very similar to the Dardanelles Commission. Noble Lords will remember that that commission was established in 1915 in wartime. It met in private for reasons of national security, but also because it wanted to talk to serving officers. It had on it two Members of the House of Lords, four Members of the House of Commons, an admiral and a general. It was in fact chaired by an admiral, although that would not be appropriate in the present circumstances. It would be better if it were chaired by a politician—one from the governing party.
	We have a very well equipped person—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg—who would make an excellent chairman. He is well known to the Prime Minister and the likely future Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and is a man of robust independence and intelligence with a legal framework. That commission should be charged with looking into the machinery of government in the conduct of the operations in Afghanistan and in Iraq from 2001 to the time when it may make its reports. I would expect it to sit predominantly, perhaps wholly, in private. As with the Dardanelles Commission, we are in many senses in a time of war, and it is not easy for serving officers to give evidence. Indeed, I think it is undesirable to give evidence in public in such circumstances. It is not easy even for people who have recently retired to speak out publicly while they know that what they say could be used against forces operating in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. They wish to say nothing to damage morale or to call into question the sacrifices already made by brave personnel who have either lost their lives or who have been very seriously injured.
	I speak as someone who believed, and still believes, that it was right to put forces into Afghanistan. I believed that it was right to invade Iraq, and I still believe that it is right to keep our forces in Iraq. I am very against some artificial exit strategy being devised. There will come a time when the Iraqi Government will ask us to leave Iraq, I hope because of success, or we may conclude that our presence is no longer making a better contribution and that we are doing more harm than good. I hope we do not reach that stage.
	In Afghanistan, we face horrendous problems. In practically no other country in the world is it harder to conduct a military operation successfully. History has shown us that painfully. It is where the British Empire arguably met its match many years ago, and where the Russian empire folded and collapsed in living memory. In those operations, which I believe, as I have said, should be conducted, it must be said, with some reluctance, that there is a massive loss of confidence in our capacity to handle these operations among many of the people who supported them in the first place and continue to support them. We need to be satisfied that the machinery of government that operates is the very best. If, in the First World War, it was possible for the first report of the Dardanelles Commission to focus on the Committee of Imperial Defence, the War Council and the very sensitive issue of what advice should come from senior admirals and generals—and now, of course, from Air Force officers—to the war Cabinet, why would such a thing not be possible now? Indeed, the question now is: why was a war Cabinet not established? It is also a time when we need to question very seriously the new machinery of government. In 2001, after the flush of electoral victory, with absolutely no independent objective study whatever, the Prime Minister introduced two Cabinet secretariats—one dealing with the European Union and the other dealing with the military and security question—inside No. 10, no longer serving the entire Cabinet, and breaking up the traditional structure of the Cabinet secretariat serving the Cabinet as a whole.
	It appears that there has been not the slightest change in the Prime Minister's commitment to continuing with this machinery, despite the extraordinary record of incompetence. Just take one issue; namely, the Security Council debate on the second resolution. It is no good blaming President Bush or Secretary of State Colin Powell for that decision. They did not want a second resolution. At one stage, the French Government did not want a second resolution and were prepared to compromise. It was the British that went through to that and made the greatest miscalculation of the weighing of votes and opinions in the Security Council since the Suez crisis.
	We need to have more confidence in the machinery—the independent evaluation of the UN department in the Foreign Office—about what is happening in the Security Council, not just from New York, but from capitals, coming through the Foreign Secretary to the Cabinet to tell them how British interests can best be defended. This is not a judgment that can be taken solely in No. 10 with these secretariats, however well manned, without the full backing of the department of state of the Foreign Office. We need to know a lot more about how the Ministry of Defence also contributes to this debate.
	The resources question is vital. It cannot be ignored, but how is this independent advice brought and to whom does it go? I can think of no other occasion—certainly since the First World War—where the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Deputy Prime Minister, to say but two, have not been members of a war Cabinet which would have the independent advice of the chiefs in the Ministry of Defence; the full flow of information coming back from the field from commanders; the full flow of information from a Foreign Secretary who was reporting not just to the Prime Minister but to the Cabinet and the war Cabinet. The issues should be evaluated and the decisions taken in a properly balanced way with documents and minutes, and reported back from the war Cabinet to the full Cabinet.
	The absence of those things is no longer a minor issue. It is a deeply serious question. We have lost the lives of many servicemen during these operations already. Sadly, we will lose more. We in Parliament in this House of Lords and in the House of Commons have a responsibility. It is about time that we exercised it. I am extremely concerned about the Government's response to the Public Administration Select Committee's report, Government By Inquiry. Paragraph 215, recommends that,
	"in future inquiries into the conduct and actions of government should exercise their authority through the legitimacy of Parliament in the form of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry composed of parliamentarians and others, rather than by the exercise of the prerogative power of the Executive".
	Not perhaps surprisingly, the Government disagree with the committee's view that it is constitutionally less satisfactory for the Prime Minister to establish a committee of Privy Counsellors to address particular situations that may arise. It is time that majority, which exists in this House and in the House of Commons, called the Government to account, not in a spirit of vindictiveness or wanting to provide day-by-day headlines in public inquiries, but in a spirit of trying to find the best machinery for operating, particularly outside NATO. When we operate within NATO we know the machinery of government. We know the structures. We have worked with them for many decades. When we work in multilateral organisations, or bilaterally with the United States, different considerations apply. We need an independent look at that machinery of government for handling those difficult operations.
	I have spoken long enough. I say only this: I believe that there is no more important issue now for restoring morale in the services than for the Parliament of this country to assert its rights over the Executive and establish that inquiry, even though it is likely to be fought tooth and nail by the Prime Minister.

Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, our indebtedness to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, is shown by the length of the list of speakers today. If noble Lords were to place me on the political spectrum, I imagine that many would classify me as green and dripping—in other words, as a weedy wet. But in at least one respect, noble Lords would be wrong. In matters to do with the Armed Forces, I find myself in an entirely different area of the political spectrum. I suspect that that is to do with my generation and my age. I grew up during the war, when my elders all went off to fight. I watched the Battle of Britain and lived within sight of London burning. I am deeply concerned that we should have effective Armed Forces and that we should look after them properly. In my volume of Other Men's Flowers, no poem resonates more than Dorothy L Sayer's poem, published in the Times in 1940, "Thank God now for an English war".
	It is because I feel deeply that I am very worried, as many of your Lordships undoubtedly are, about the present situation. Our Armed Forces are seriously under strength, recruiting figures are low, and there appears to be a malaise felt or at least recognised by all who care for these matters. There are no doubt all sorts of minor points which can be put right, but it seems that the root of the matter is very basic. The population of this country is very dubious about the ends to which these forces are being deployed.
	In 1939, we knew that a tyrant was taking over Europe and that our liberties were in danger. The doubts of Munich disappeared when we heard the broadcast which told us that we were at war. I heard that broadcast within a mile of the house in Bletchley where as much as anywhere the war was won. Our men and women willingly went out to fight, secure in the knowledge that their country was wholeheartedly behind them.
	Since 1945, we have on the whole been able to feel that in military matters we have been doing our duty. In Malaysia, we were protecting a population for which we were to a large extent responsible. In the Falklands, that was also the immediate task, although some of us felt that we should never have been landed in such a situation in the first place.
	However, two international situations in which our forces have been deployed in my lifetime seem to have a bearing on our situation today. Korea was a very nasty war—not that any wars are nice—where our forces fought with great courage, secure in the knowledge that their efforts were legitimate. We believed that we had moved on from the world in which we went to war because we thought that it was right to fight, to a world where we had shared responsibility with an international body—the United Nations Organisation. We fought the Korean War under that banner.
	The other situation, which has been mentioned once or twice in this debate, was that of Suez, where we appeared to have reverted to the moral quagmire of the Boer War and were able only slightly to salve our consciences by the belief that our Prime Minister had been off his chump when we did it.
	If those are two serious types of national behaviour, as I believe that they are, there can be little doubt about which of them we find ourselves closest to today. We have appointed ourselves the world's policeman or, if the USA is the world's policeman, we have appointed ourselves as one of the new kind of peace aides you see about. But we have neglected to ask the world whether it wants us in that role. Many of our fellow citizens, among which I number the whole of my party, believe that the Iraq war is illegal and much more akin to Suez than to Korea. After all, the UN has not sanctioned it, nor has our national Parliament. If that is so, it is little wonder that recruitment is not high, that various forms of behaviour in the theatre of war are beginning to seem morally and even legally dubious, and that morale—not of the men in the line, but of the whole network of support echelons reaching back to ourselves in this building—is low.
	The defence forces of this country are one of our most precious heritages. There is no doubt whatever that we in this Parliament value them intensely. That being so, we should not allow them to be deployed in dubious causes, no matter how speciously those causes are argued. This is not an English war, it is an American imperial adventure; and we should not be lending—or giving, since some of them will not come back—our men and women to it, no matter how readily and valiantly they go.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, most warmly for the opportunity to participate in this much-needed debate. I sympathise with the Minister, who until a few moments ago found himself the sole representative of his party on its Benches in this Chamber today. I hope that that does not reflect its interest in the subject matter. I declare an interest as a recent commanding officer of a Territorial regiment, and again I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, for his kind comments about the Reserves, which I echo. After the interventions of several noble and gallant Lords who have dealt so wisely with these issues, along with the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, who considered these matters at the diplomatic and strategic levels—and to whom we all listened with great interest—it is for me to take things back to a more mundane level; that of a commanding officer who is operating at what might be called the coalface of the military.
	Let me start with manpower. This is an area where commitments are particularly tight in what are called the "operational pinch points"; these are specialists such as those who are medically qualified, engineers and certain logistic trades. The infantry is also feeling the pinch. The 1st Battalion the Staffordshire Regiment is in the course of a break of only 12 months between tours in Iraq, of which two months are being spent in Canada, training hard. The 1st Battalion the Light Infantry is currently on its third tour in Iraq in three years. These are merely examples. It is well known that the Army is being forced to exceed the level of commitment in the defence planning assumptions, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, mentioned, and it will continue to exceed those assumptions until at least the end of 2007.
	Now we are galloping off to Afghanistan. Whether or not one agrees with what ISAF has been tasked to do there, which is a matter for another debate, it must be observed that we are sending a relatively small number of troops to do a massive job. Comparing the number of troops involved to those deployed in similar scale operations in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles or in Kosovo does not make pretty reading. Afghanistan is at least as dangerous as either of those and our area of responsibility is large, with very porous borders. The Government bear a heavy responsibility.
	Turning to recruitment and retention, I would make the observation that to retain a trained soldier in whom the Army has invested both training and experience must be more efficient, all other things being equal, than recruiting a new one. I understand we are paying a bounty to soldiers to recruit their friends, yet inexplicably we pay no danger money to our troops deployed on dangerous missions in inhospitable places. It is not that Iraq is a UN deployment, of course, but as an example, other countries pass on to their soldiers the payment their country receives from the UN for UN deployments, yet our soldiers do not receive the equivalent payment, which is pocketed by the Treasury. It is hardly surprising that so many of them leave, as indeed have several from my former regiment, who are now working for private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan for up to five times their Army pay.
	All Army officers are taught that you deploy your Reserve only when you can do it decisively to turn the battle in your favour, or if it will enable you to save your force from what would otherwise be certain defeat. You never do it as a matter of routine. But we now expect routinely to deploy our Reserves. Noble Lords will be aware of how many TA soldiers are currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and indeed that number, although significant, is well down on the peak figure reached when the Government ordered the compulsory deployment of TA soldiers; people who have real jobs supporting the economy here and who were put at risk by adventuring in the Middle East because of inadequate funding of Regular Forces.
	While there are many areas where equipment is below an adequate level, let me focus on just a couple of them. The size of the current fleet of battlefield helicopters was predicated on the defence planning assumptions, which did not envisage two concurrent operations at medium scale; but that is where we now find ourselves, being in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The fleet is therefore split between the two theatres, leading to resultant shortages and thus putting soldiers' lives at considerably greater risk than they would have been had the Government rationed themselves, as they said they intended, to one war at a time.
	As regards mine-protected vehicles, in the House earlier this month the Minister said, among other things, that:
	"The Snatch Land Rover provides us with the mobility and level of protection that we need.
	We had 14 RG-31s in Bosnia, which we took out of service some time ago due to difficulties with maintenance. We have looked at the RG-31 alongside a number of alternatives for our current fleet and concluded that the size and profile did not meet our needs".—[Official Report, 12/6/06; col. 2.]
	Perhaps the Minister could comment on the suggestion made in the press recently that we actually used Mambas in Bosnia, a much earlier and more primitive version. While I accept that the RG-31 is not perfect, being more difficult to dismount from, especially for the commander, wider than the Land Rover and designed primarily to withstand buried mines rather than mines fired from the side, nevertheless in the 21st century almost anything would be better than the Land Rover. The Americans are said to be using RG-31s to considerable effect in their area of responsibility. As a matter of interest, they are also built by a British-owned firm. Even if the Snatch Land Rover did do an adequate job, which unfortunately it cannot against mines, with the operational requirement for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, there are only about two dozen remaining in the UK for reserve and training for future battle groups to prepare for a deployment.
	The issue of married quarters was the focus for discussion at the Army Families Federation conference on Thursday last week, which I believe the Minister attended. The quality of married quarters has deteriorated dramatically through lack of funding over the past few years. For the peace of mind of the servicemen deployed on operations, support for the family must be effective. In terms of housing, sadly it is widely recognised not to be so.
	What a depressing tale this all is, yet the Government seem either unaware or not prepared to do anything about it. At the root of all these problems is funding. The Armed Forces are simply not being funded to a sufficient level to implement the Government's aspirations to stride the world stage. The result is that the Government find it easiest to realise savings in the frontline, both in manning and equipment, thus having a direct and adverse impact on the safety, capability and morale of our fighting soldiers. By way of conclusion, I would say that all of this is compounded by further unnecessary attacks on morale such as the several recent and ongoing legal cases and now the undermining of the position of the commanding officer and, through him, of the regimental system, and therefore directly the confidence of our soldiers, to which several noble Lords and I referred in the recent Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill.

Viscount Brookeborough: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble and gallant friend Lord Inge for initiating this debate. I feel rather nervous because I am taking quite a narrow view of a particular subject; the Minister will be aware of this because I wrote to him earlier about it. I should declare my interests. I am, first, a member of the National Employers Advisory Board for the Reserves of the Armed Forces. Secondly, I am honorary colonel of a TA battalion.
	While in Basra recently, I was struck by the similarity of certain operations to those that we carried out in Northern Ireland. But what really made an impression was the obviously low numbers of helicopters—less than half the maximum of 72 that we had in Northern Ireland. I have been involved in anti-terrorist operations in Northern Ireland for the past 30 years or so, and I saw some interesting parallels.
	In Basra, in the multinational force area, insurgents are not normally suicidal. However, they have taken IRA technology—which is what it was—directly off the shelf. Suffice it to say, it is a device that noble Lords may have seen in the newspapers last week. It is called a PIR RC IED—a passive infrared radio-controlled improvised explosive device. It is almost certainly manufactured in Iran. It is not improvised—the device has been made by machines in a factory. The system of initiation enables extreme accuracy. That is why soldiers are being killed in Snatch vehicles. It is also capable of disabling tracked vehicles.
	I am aware that we are developing counter measures. However, like Northern Ireland terrorists, the insurgents are most certainly developing the next generation of weapons to get round our counter measures. By the nature of things, we will always be slightly behind, so the problem cannot just be shuffled away, with the hope that there is a counter measure.
	We were told by the Minister in May in answer to a Written Question that our service helicopter fleet was only 59 per cent operational. That is seriously bad news; it is a disgrace within a modern Army. We were also told that there were 28 helicopters in Iraq, of which an average of 22 per cent were not serviceable. Therefore, there are, on average, 20 serviceable aircraft in Iraq. This does not differentiate between the various capabilities. We were told that we had two Chinooks, eight Sea Kings, seven Merlins, five Pumas and six Lynx. I read a report about more Sea Kings going to Iraq, but I am not sure whether they are the right aircraft and whether we are not plugging a hole with the wrong nail.
	If these helicopters are defined, rather vaguely, into "support/heavier lift" and "tactical/patrol deployment" categories, that would result in the Chinooks, Sea Kings and Merlins being in the support and heavy lift category, the Pumas being dual purpose and the six Lynx being the patrolling aircraft. This does not take into account the fact that seven may be unserviceable, spread over all types, or in extremes, all from one category. That is a possibility, but we hope it does not occur.
	My observations are as follows. The 17 aircraft in the larger category and the Pumas in the second category are almost entirely used moving personnel and equipment between bases in the multinational force area in southern Iraq. That also includes providing aircraft to go to Baghdad occasionally. These tasks include administrative resupply, changeover of units, servicemen travelling to and from R&R and hospital visits. These tasks are important—in fact, they are essential. They have become a vital priority in maintaining our deployment, so they are not for giving up, day by day, in preference to something else.
	That leaves the Lynx and sometimes some of the Pumas for all the other tasks, including operational patrolling, surveillance and general taxi work. Surveillance is important because our modern surveillance system—the successor to P3—fills up the back of a Puma. You cannot land it on the ground and pick up eight soldiers. That helicopter is operational for surveillance only.
	At the very best, it would be difficult to ring-fence the use of more than eight choppers for eagle patrolling and tactical operations by troops on the ground throughout the whole of our area. Where the use of single aircraft is at high risk, it will have to be done in pairs, thereby reducing separate operations that may be supported by choppers at any one time.
	In practical terms, regardless of the theory, if anyone suffers a reduction in heli hours due to serviceability, it is the soldiers deploying on routine operations—they may be routine, but they are highly dangerous in Iraq—and not the vital admin resupply and support. It is therefore true that an overall increase in helis, and therefore heli hours, by, for example, 25 per cent, would be seven aircraft. That could result in a 100 per cent increase in availability of choppers for supporting patrolling on the ground. That is not great and I do not understand why we are not doing it.
	We have lost personnel increasingly while on mobile patrol. We had a very similar problem in Northern Ireland, and we had to put large areas completely out of bounds to mobile patrols. Where I live, across the main road, it did not matter what happened—you were not allowed to take a mobile patrol. We used covert patrol vehicles, but I accept that that is not an option for Iraq. We also used helis, but we had 72 before taking serviceability into account. They often had to operate in pairs. We must ask ourselves questions about the patrols, especially mobile patrols. Is a given patrol really necessary? What is the threat and why is the IED beside the road? Could the patrol be done on foot? If we have the heli hours, could we use helis to patrol at virtually no risk? Are the helis at risk?
	There was a range of conclusions, which included the following. Obviously many mobile patrols are vital to achieve the mission, but occasionally, if you ask the questions carefully, it is found that the answer is that they are "not really vital". So why are we doing it? If the threat to a mobile patrol is an IED, then why did the opposition set it up? To protect something, or purely because the patrol would pass it? If the latter is correct, then there is no need to be there, and that is why the IED is there. That is a very simple but important argument.
	If the patrol is on foot, it is easier, through tactics developed in Northern Ireland and now in Iraq, to protect themselves and control the environment around them. I shall not go into detail, but that is what occurs. If there are heli hours, eagle patrolling reduces the risk immediately. If helis are at risk, the use of helis in pairs enhances safety yet again. One helicopter operates while the other one watches. Two helis in the air can virtually freeze terrorist movement in a 2 kilometre-square area. The second one can react to any unusual activity. There are more ARFs—air reaction forces—in the air, day by day, which can react to other things occurring in the area.
	In Northern Ireland, the threat to helis virtually disappeared when there was more than one of them in the air. There were occasions in County Fermanagh, where I live, when a patrol or OP was hit and there was not vital necessity for it to be there. There would have been no attack if it had not been on the ground at the time. If it was not in an ambush position, what was it doing providing a target? That is what some mobiles are doing.
	While in Iraq, I asked a very senior person how the Iraqis will patrol when we leave and remove our technology, which is going to happen. I was told that the Iraqi mobile patrols did not seem to be targeted in the same way. We seem to be providing ourselves as a target, especially if an Iraqi patrol can do it. That is fact—it is what I was told.
	If you ask a senior officer, "Are you coping with accomplishing your mission?", the answer will be yes. If he gave the wrong answer, you would probably remove him. However, if you were to ask, "If you were provided with substantially more helis, would it change your tactics and make it safer?", the answer would be a resounding yes and you would have a very happy officer. Incidentally, an increase in helicopters to Northern Ireland levels would increase those provided to soldiers by 600 per cent.
	In a discussion on research for new vehicles in the other place on 26 June, the Secretary of State said:
	"There are medium and long-term plans relating to vehicles, and I shall be considering what we can do to respond to the situation in the short term".
	The review should already be under way. We are in an operational situation. How come we have just decided to do it today? The terrorists, or the insurgents, are already reviewing what we are trying to counter, and we are about to set up the review. I suppose that it is something. What are the Government doing when they say that they,
	"shall be considering what we can do to respond . . . in the short term"?
	The "short term" is tomorrow. Something should already have been done. That debate was on 26 June. It is amazing.
	Later, the Secretary of State said:
	"Decisions on which vehicles to use on operations are for the commanders on the ground".—[Official Report, Commons, 26/6/06; cols. 4-5.]
	The commander can use only what he's got. It is a lovely turn of phrase, but if he had the helis, he wouldn't be in the wagon.
	A number of those in another place and some commentators have asked about bigger or stronger vehicles, but I do not think that that is the right line to go down. We do, however, need a patrolling vehicle, because the type of IEDs being used will disable tracked armoured vehicles. What are you left with after such an incident? You are left with a marooned armoured vehicle. How do you get it out? If you cannot, you may have a riot situation. Or perhaps we do not need to worry about it because, after they have stopped killing people in the tracked vehicle, the crowd will ensure that the situation is sufficiently in hand to petrol-bomb the living daylights out of it. These vehicles are difficult to recover. All I will say is that these reviews are a bit late in the day, and we ought to get some of the 41 per cent of choppers which are non-operational into the air pretty quickly.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, for introducing the debate today and I remind the House of my peripheral interest. My noble friend Lord Luke exclusively and comprehensively covered the issue of defence housing. I am grateful to him for so doing because it obviates the need for me to cover all his points. However, it is worth repeating that we are asking far too much of our service people. We need to alter the balance slightly between shiny new systems and platforms on one hand and decent service housing and accommodation on the other.
	On procurement, where are we with the future strategic tanker aircraft? The preferred bidder was announced some time ago. When will an order be placed? The STA seems an ideal candidate for PFI, so it is difficult to understand why the project is not making much progress.
	Many noble Lords have noted that defence funding has to be sufficient to provide deterrence to any potential aggressor. That was relatively easy during the Cold War. We put in place credible conventional forces and backed them up with a nuclear deterrent, and it worked without a shot being fired. During the Reserve Forces debate recently I paid tribute to the Ministers and senior officers who so skilfully prosecuted that campaign.
	However, current demand for operational deployment appears infinite. Currently we have Afghanistan, Iraq and the tail-end of the Balkans as significant operations, plus many others. If we were not involved in those, there are other candidates such as Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe and the DRC to mention a few. If those potential military interventions were backed up with the appropriate international sanctions, they would be a force for good. However, noble Lords should be aware of the risk being taken—we cannot really deploy one extra fighting brigade, even if we want to. The desirable Bowman installation project is not helping because it takes out a whole brigade while it is being Bowmanised.
	The demand for British deployment will not go away, as indicated by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge. All Governments—this Government are no exception—measure commitments and liabilities and then provide the necessary resources or pretend to do so, but they never quite succeed. At the last election, my own party said that it would fully fund defence commitments, or words to that effect, which is very reassuring. The good news is that we have a fabulous defence capability. Very few countries in the world can deploy an armoured brigade at reach from home base—only ourselves, the US, the French and possibly the Russians can do so. Given the capability that we enjoy, we must be spending about the right amount on defence. The problem has a symptom starkly laid out by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge—we are doing far too much with just too little. We should be honest with ourselves and admit that we are prepared to spend only about £35 billion.
	At Question Time today, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, told the House that the Government had increased expenditure on international aid by 140 per cent. But this Government, some time ago, proudly announced a minuscule real increase in defence expenditure despite that not being matched by defence expenditure inflation or the growth in GDP. I will be having a chat with the Minister next week in the Chamber and I am sure he is looking forward to that.
	If we are honest, we should say how much money we are prepared to spend on defence and then determine what we can do with that while retaining a comprehensive capability and with the expectation of working in an alliance. Rather than having defence planning assumptions that we have failed to adhere to over the past three years, we should have a defence capability statement and then not demand any more from the Armed Forces. We should stick to what we can do. If we desire to do more, we need to increase defence funding. If we decide to continue at the current levels, we need to massively increase the size of the Regular Army and provide it with appropriate support from the other Armed Forces.
	The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, mentioned the lack of a theatre reserve battle group. I was aware of that problem several months ago and I suspect that he was as well. When were the Minister and his colleagues first aware of this lack in the Afghanistan theatre? The Minister should understand that having a reserve battle group outside of the theatre is not good enough. My humble military duties involve being a watchkeeper for a formation headquarters—a brigade or higher. The biggest challenge that I experienced was not having a personal relationship with the officers in the subordinate units, so I had to develop those relationships extremely quickly on exercises and operations.
	The reserve battle group would be called up from outside the theatre only in extremis. That is not a good time to develop close relationships and trust, that vital component of command and control. Of course, key members of the battle group's command team would undertake a recce of theatre, but it would still leave poor integration between the unit and the formation at most levels. That is not a very healthy situation.

Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, I am glad that I was here for the very powerful opening speech by my noble and gallant friend Lord Inge, whom I congratulate on obtaining this important debate. I am sorry that having to attend the inquiry into the Zahid Mubarek murder meant that I have had to miss a large number of other statements, which I would dearly have liked to have heard.
	As my noble and gallant friend mentioned, I would like to include two other subjects in this debate by expanding in some detail on why we get so concerned, rather than merely passing comments, on the tour interval and the need for service directors of public relations. Just before the last Gulf War, a number of us, including the noble Lord, Lord Garden, got together to write a paper to send to the Prime Minister outlining some of our concerns about what such a campaign might involve, and in particular the overstretch of already overstretched Armed Forces that might result. Nothing happened for five weeks, so I sent a letter about when we had been told that letters would arrive back from the Prime Minister. Almost by return of motorbike, I got a letter from the Minister at the Foreign Office, Mr O'Brien, who at the end of five closely typed pages included a pat on the head, saying, "You don't need to worry because the gap between tours is 23 months".
	What worried me about that statement was not only that it was wholly incorrect—we would not have written saying that we were worried unless we had had full briefing from the Ministry of Defence, which we had had, and in my case personal knowledge from friends and people who were in the Army who explained about the short tours. I was worried, too, because the fact that the Minister could write that made me think that he believed it—and if he believed that that was the case, it suggested that the flaws were in the planning process, which might result in even further overstretch.
	Why are we concerned about this? There is always a danger when old soldiers stand up to speak that you cast your mind back to what used to happen. I am not going to worry about doing that on this occasion. There used to be something called the annual training cycle, because everyone recognised that in all three services you had to train individuals first, and having got their individual skills honed you then put them into teams or sub-units or whatever and worked down to a conclusion in the year with a major exercise, when you put together as large a formation as possible. At that time it was reckoned that to recover from an operational tour and go through a proper cycle of regeneration to enable the full training of individuals in their skills, to move people on to other skills and retrain them and, most particularly, to identify and train your future non-commissioned officers—the middle management—and officers, two years was about right. The first year was left to the unit to do what it had to do and the second year it went through a full process, with the result that at the end of two years you could say, "I have a fully trained and refreshed unit which is fully ready for operations".
	An example of the excellence of that cycle was very well borne out to me by the case of the 2nd Scots Guards, who were under my command in Belfast in 1980; they returned to London in 1981 and went on public duties and then went to the Falklands, where they fought some extremely fierce battles, particularly on Tumbledown. They had done nothing like that since the war. When I questioned the commanding officer about how it was possible to go from the streets of Belfast through public duties and out to the Falklands and to perform excellently in all three, he said that it was the quality of the training that they had been able to do on all ranks. Unless you have experienced that, you do not realise why people get so concerned about what is being missed if tour intervals are down to as short a time as 10 months, as they are now, and regiments are going back to Iraq within a year of leaving it.
	When I commanded my regiment in Belfast in 1974-75, I became extremely concerned about the quality of our non-commissioned officers—not in the tactical side on the streets, but in all the other things that they needed to do to look after their riflemen, develop them and see that they themselves were identified for future careers. I came to the conclusion that although we were operating at very high activity rates in four-man groups all over the streets of Belfast, the individual middle manager had no responsibility for his soldiers. He led them, came back, somebody else debriefed them, fed them, paid them, sent them on leave and then briefed them again. They were more like bomber crews in the air force than soldiers living a 365-day regimental year. Fortunately, we were sent to Gibraltar and were able to have three-month non-commissioned officer courses to try to put that right, because I reckoned that without a period to do that sort of thing the regiment would have exhausted the talent that it had and would have been left with undertrained people for the future.
	I mention that because what worries me about having tour lengths down to as low as they are now is that the regiments and units in the Army are not being allowed to regenerate themselves and, most particularly, to develop the future leadership and skills. It is always the case that the services, with their admirable attitude of "Wilco-ness wins", will go off and do anything that they are asked to the best of their ability. The single servicemen love being on operations and love being away, but the strain is felt by the people who have been there for longer, particularly those who are married. I worry about the figures that suggest that the people at about the 10-year point are haemorrhaging, because they are the people whose experience is absolutely critical for the future.
	The seeds of this problem were sown way back in an exercise called Options for Change, which was introduced by the Conservative Government in 1991. What worried my noble and gallant friend Lord Inge and I, because we were both on the Army board that considered the matter, was the sudden reduction in the numbers of the Army from 156,000 to 104,000, a cut of one-third. We argued very strongly that the assessment had not included what was likely to follow the end of the Cold War and all that might be required. We argued—this is not an attempt to score a cheap inter-service point against my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig or the noble Lord, Lord Garden—that the RAF at that time had a strength of 85,000. We felt that there was an imbalance and we argued long and strong for the Army to be up to 125,000, which would have enabled it to cope with its problems. We lost. The figure is still down and is still too low. I cannot see how with the current commitment rate we can get it up to what it ought to be, to be able to have the regeneration process that there ought to be. That is why we feel so strongly about these rates.
	Noble Lords will forgive me for repeating anything that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, has said on the business of the director of public relations. What happened was that in 1997 the then director of Army public relations was responsible for a BBC film of a riot control exercise at Sandhurst in which the rioters were depicted as trade unionists. The Prime Minister, Mr Wilson, rang up the Ministry of Defence very angrily and said, "If that's what they think is good public relations, never again must a serviceman be director of public relations for the whole Ministry of Defence. We will have a civilian in charge—they can have people in each of the services but they will not have one at the top".
	The next time that the public relations came under pressure was in the Falklands War, when a civilian was in charge. Noble Lords will remember Mr Ian McDonald, with his remarkable speaking voice, who was known familiarly by the press as the warm-up man for the "Lutine" bell. The problem was that, quite rightly as a civil servant, he saw his first duty as to Ministers, so the job of that part of the public relations staff was purely to serve Ministers and their policy. They used to say that they would have a line to take followed by a Q&A brief, and that that would answer anything. The trouble was that when we came to the Falklands War the press did not believe the policy line; they did not ask the "Q"s, nor listen to the "A"s. The public relations staff were floundering. Eventually he had to be rescued by bringing military men in to be the spokesmen and give explanations. That happened after the first battle of Goose Green, and then right on to the end. That is a lesson that should have been learnt.
	Immediately after the war, however, there was an inquiry into the handling of the media during it by the Defence Committee in the other place, which recommended a reduction in the number of service directors of public relations. That reduction has gone on until, recently, the previous Secretary of State abolished them altogether. That is a very retrograde step, particularly because the role of those people is not the protection of Ministers but the protection and projection of the image of the Armed Forces.
	When I see inaccurate depictions of operations, what worries me is that they are giving a false impression to the public that can lead to wrong ideas. When I see inept handling of issues such as casualty reporting, and when I see media people floundering because they do not understand what they are looking at as they are not defence correspondents but journalists, I realise what a gaping hole there is. Particularly at this time, with all the strains so admirably described by my noble and gallant friend Lord Inge, this is a cry to re-examine that unfortunate decision and give the services back the person who can best help explain what they are all about to the public whom they serve.

Lord Garden: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, for arranging this important debate. We have heard common themes from noble Lords, with all their wide experience. We have heard of too many operational tasks. We have heard of deficiencies in the current equipment and in the future equipment programme. The question of insufficient resources in the defence budget has come up time and again. Most important, we have heard expressions of concern about the way in which our men and women who serve and try to make the system work in the Armed Forces are feeling bruised. We have also heard personnel worries about the future. I want to keep the personnel issues uppermost in my remarks.
	I turn first to operational tasking. I was grateful for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, about the lack of a debate on Iraq and Afghanistan with a Foreign Office Minister to respond to it. Despite the assurances that I had that such a debate would happen before the Recess, it has not. I trust that it will happen soon after the Recess. For all the reasons that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, gave for the necessity to look at the grand strategic picture of these campaigns, it is important that we have this debate and that it is answered by a Foreign Office Minister.
	The challenges that our troops face in these two theatres remain severe, as we have heard. In Iraq, the announcement of the forthcoming handover of one of the provinces to the Iraqi security forces is of course welcome, but it means that we will see a redistribution to the more difficult areas, such as the urban areas of Basra. What effect will the forthcoming departures by the Japanese and Italian personnel have on UK force taskings in that area?
	The other major operational challenge, as we have heard, is in Afghanistan. We are in a period of transition as the south goes over to NATO control from Operation Enduring Freedom. It is a considerable test for the alliance, and clarity of purpose and command is essential. The chairman of the Defence Select Committee, James Arbuthnot, speaking in the defence debate last week in the other place, asked whether,
	"the operational command and control between ISAF and Operation Enduring Freedom has been fully worked out".—[Official Report, Commons, 22/6/06; col. 1539.]
	In the same debate Sir Malcolm Rifkind—a former Defence Secretary, of course—worried that we might,
	"maintain an inefficient military command structure that cannot deliver the best results".—[Official Report, Commons, 22/6/06; col. 1532.]
	He also warned that it might be used to justify a reduced American commitment. We cannot afford to find ourselves trying to solve Afghanistan with allies who operate under debilitating national constraints and with the focus of the United States moving away. I ask the Minister to address this issue in his remarks, as I think that we have yet to be reassured on these questions.
	As we have heard, both Iraq and Afghanistan, although different operations, pose common equipment and personnel challenges. Lack of appropriate equipment to give safe mobility has been a common theme in a number of speeches today. Reflecting on his visit to Iraq, the chairman of the Defence Select Committee said in the other place last week:
	"The number of helicopters there is tiny, and the number of vehicles is too small".—[Official Report, Commons, 22/6/06; col. 1541.]
	I was grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, for giving us the detail behind that. I agreed with everything he said. Whether it is vehicle protection on the ground or lack of helicopter lift, we are seriously hampering our operational capability.
	In sum, I worry that we have a serious problem of not concentrating sufficiently on the needs of the two major operations in which we find ourselves engaged. The future of Trident, on which we had two speeches, FRES, new carriers, network-enabled capabilities, Future Lynx, JSF, Astute submarines, A400M, Type 45 frigates and the other new projects are important issues, but I fear—and, having listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Levene, am now certain—that they will arrive later than expected and cost more than we have budgeted for, as has been the case in the past. We have to get by in the mean time. As an example, my first operational tour was on the "Canberra"; next July, the "Canberra" goes out of service after 55 yeas of operations constantly waiting for replacement. We have to make do with the equipment that we have, and we need to focus on where to upgrade it.
	We know that we are going to be in Afghanistan for at least the next three years, and it would be a brave forecaster who thought that Iraq would be all right in less than that time. What can we do to urgently improve the capabilities that are available now? As the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, reminded us, we need greater numbers of suitable troops and specialists to reduce the operational pinch points, which are defined as the trades where there is insufficient strength to perform directed tasks. The AFPRB identified those pinch points in its February report and I remind your Lordships of the astonishing figures: 20 different manning areas in the Royal Navy, 25 in the Army and 40 in the Royal Air Force.
	This is a double whammy. We have the Armed Forces working continuously beyond the defence planning assumptions year after year. We also have a shortfall in the key specialisations for operational tasks, which is why we cannot achieve harmony levels in those areas in particular. That affects retention, which in turn makes shortages more acute and drives down experience levels. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, told us, it also affects the level of training that we can give these people, so they are less experienced and less trained.
	We had the opportunity on 23 March this year, following a Statement by the Minister, to debate how the Reserves are being affected by this operational overstretch. I trust that he will give us an update on how that is progressing, particularly on the medical side. The lack of medical capability in the Regular Forces is likely to worsen because of growing pay differentials between civilian and military doctors. The AFPRB report on medical pay for this year has still not been published. Why not? Dr Brendan McKeating, chairman of the British Medical Association Armed Forces Committee, speaking at the conference this week, said that,
	"if . . . a low or inflation-matching pay award for armed forces doctors is announced, it will have disastrous implications for a service which is already significantly undermanned in critical areas. It is also likely to cause many of these doctors who are the military's deployable medical experts to resign from the armed forces to go into significantly better paid NHS posts where they will not have the added turbulence of repeated deployments".
	I turn briefly to the future equipment programme. I am tempted to get myself into the Trident debate, but time does not allow for that and I know, given the guarantees that Ministers have given, that we shall come back and have a proper debate on it in due course. I have a few key questions, though. We want the Eurofighter Typhoon to be air-to-ground. That is what we need it for operationally. When are we going to know what capabilities are going to be added to the Eurofighter to give it that capacity, and when will they arrive?
	On the carrier programme, I ask not when will they come into service, but when the Minister anticipates that the first piece of metal will be cut. Where are we on JSF discussions with the US, which seem to go up and down on whether the technology transfer will happen? I have one question on the nuclear deterrent, which reflects a point that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, made: what assumptions have been made about the funding profile beyond 2010? Has the Ministry of Defence already allowed for the Trident replacement, or must this be found at the expense of other capabilities?
	On the defence industrial strategy, I remind your Lordships of the conclusion of the Defence Select Committee:
	"Adequate funding will be vital for the success of the Defence Industrial Strategy".
	Does the Minister agree with that? The committee went on to say:
	"This will be a key issue for the MoD to negotiate with HM Treasury in the Comprehensive Spending Review".
	That brings me to the defence budget. It is the key to how we manage all the problems that we have been talking about. In July 2001, the late Sir Michael Alexander and I wrote an article in International Affairs entitled "The Arithmetic of Defence Policy". We looked back over 25 years of spending and forward for 20 years. Using forward projections and assumptions, we reckoned that defence in 2020 would receive 1.3 per cent of UK GDP. Five years on, the proportion of GDP is tracking our graph exactly. We then forecast a consequential front line of half the 2001 size after 20 years. Again, we have seen such cuts.
	We offered a solution that looked much more seriously at sharing capabilities across Europe. Unfortunately, progress there has been too slow. Without any serious uplift in defence funds—which I think is unlikely—or deeper co-operation with allies, I fear that your Lordships will find themselves debating reductions in front-line capabilities every year.
	I conclude by talking about the servicemen and servicewomen and how they are affected by operational, budgetary and equipment decisions. We keep speaking about their extraordinary dedication and how they put up with conditions of service that sometimes appear to come from a different age—perhaps the Victorian age. In that respect, I ask the Minister to look more carefully at draft Answers to Questions, because they are read by servicemen. If it sounds as though everything is okay, there is a feeling of disconnect between the MoD and the serviceman. I refer to Deepcut, Gulf War illness, new pension and redundancy arrangements, accommodation standards, which were covered very well by the noble Lords, Lord Luke and Lord De Mauley, or the latest incident of the joint personnel administration system, which has left various people not getting their additional pay when they should have done.
	I was not going to talk about the Armed Forces Federation, but the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, mentioned it. Other nations manage to operate serious militaries while having a federation. If there is no other way of solving some of the problems that we have been talking about than to raise their profile, that may be a reasonable way forward. Certainly, directors of public relations are important for internal and external PR. We need the services to feel good about themselves and that means that they need service people doing the public relations, both internally and externally.
	We ask an incredible amount of the services and we mourn the continuing deaths and serious injuries, but the focus must be on the people and giving them adequate standards of care. The duty of care is greater than in any other sector of the community. If that means reducing operational commitments, that may be the price that has to be paid, or we will find ourselves with a great deal of shiny equipment but nobody to operate it.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, our debate has touched on a range of distinct but related issues, but they add up to a profound expression of anxiety. There is anxiety in this House about the insufficiency of the resources coming into our Armed Forces to enable them to prepare for and undertake the always demanding and often dangerous tasks they are asked to perform on our behalf.
	In opening the debate so authoritatively, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, put that case in the clearest possible manner. I am also grateful to him for providing us with the occasion for this excellent debate. Sadly, one name is missing from the speakers' list: that of my noble friend Lord Lyell. I am sure that all those speaking today will wish him a very speedy recovery.
	The noble and gallant Lord was right to remind us and the Government of the fundamental need to have sufficient numbers of the right people in the Armed Forces. I also pay tribute to the outstanding work that they are doing as a force for good in different parts of the world, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. I am sure that the Armed Forces will be grateful for the strong support they received from the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont.
	The noble and gallant Lord also reminded us that the Armed Forces must be well motivated and that their mood and morale must be sustained and not undermined. That, including sustained confidence in their leaders, is and will be at the heart of improvements we shall seek to bring about in the Armed Forces Bill.
	To the need for sufficient boots on the ground, and waiting in the wings, I add the equally fundamental need for a sufficient number of appropriate warships in the fleet, similarly with aircraft and particularly with helicopters. Military tasks, to be properly performed, are people-intensive and require a sufficient number of individuals deployed. But the recruitment of this sufficient number of individuals is in crisis in all three services. In addition, too many servicemen and women are leaving. They feel undervalued. Are this Government standing up for them? We have seen with the Trooper Williams and the Royal Tank Regiment cases that Ministers do not. The noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General did a great disservice to morale in the Armed Forces when he referred the Royal Tank Regiment cases to the CPS, as he said,
	"to ventilate the issues in the civilian courts",
	heralding a disgraceful delay before the five soldiers were able to clear their names. Many soldiers of all ranks cite this apparent application of civilian legal standards and abandonment of serving soldiers as a significant factor in wanting to leave.
	Incessant back-to-back tours in Iraq are not good for retention. What are the Government doing to ensure that the interval target of 24 months is met for all troops? Another example of feeling undervalued is an issue that very many servicemen and women have complained about: the nightmare of flights to and from Iraq. Noble Lords will know that I am a great admirer of the Royal Air Force. I was privileged to see the Typhoon just the other day. But why does the RAF make most of these flights to and from Iraq a drawn-out and seemingly badly run affair? Why is it necessary to ask 200 carefully vetted soldiers to report to Brize Norton 12 hours before take-off? I have heard many stories of young servicemen and women with confirmed flights home sitting around Basra airport, where there are very few facilities, sometimes for several days as there are no seats for them. If morale is damaged in this way, there are once again serious implications for retention. Will the Minister undertake to look into this problem urgently? He may think that it is trivial but too many servicemen and women tell me that they feel they are treated very badly.
	The noble Lord, Lord Garden, mentioned the Defence Medical Services. The BMA's Armed Forces Committee is concerned about the recruitment and retention problems of the Defence Medical Services, particularly in the light of what can be earned by consultants in the NHS in comparison to their military counterparts. Are the Government confident that they have sufficient regular medical officers to support current operations?
	My noble friend Lord De Mauley spoke about the Reserves with the authority of a former CO. Undoubtedly, the Reserves are in a very poor state. Over a quarter of them, 13,400, have resigned since April 2003. Every branch of the Reserve Forces is below strength. The reduced numbers and increased levels of deployment create a dangerous combination. The noble Lord, Lord Levene, made a very important speech on procurement. I agree with him that the success of the DIS depends on the defence industry's willingness to be open. The challenge for the Minister will be to drive improved relations past his own civil servants.
	The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, mentioned the story in today's FT that the DPA will merge with the DLO. Will the Minister tell the House whether there is any truth in that? Like the noble and gallant Lord, I have concerns. If the story is true, could the Minister explain the merits of creating one massive organisation embracing everything from initial concept studies to final delivery? When will we see the publication of Mr McKeen's advice? Several noble Lords have mentioned different forms of equipment and, as my noble friend Lord Selsdon said, our Armed Forces must have the best and most appropriate equipment available.
	The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, and my noble friend Lord De Mauley mentioned the Snatch Land Rover. I have had quite a mailbag about the accuracy of the Minister's reply to my question about the RG-31 a couple of weeks ago. I would be grateful if the Minister could give some further thought to his response and write to me. Some 25 per cent of the soldiers killed in Iraq have been killed in Snatch Land Rovers by IEDs. The Snatch is a brilliant vehicle, but there are times when troops would definitely be safer in a better protected armoured patrol vehicle than the Snatch Land Rover, but with a less aggressive profile than a Warrior. Several noble Lords, including the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, asked about the much-needed replacement of helicopters. I was particularly interested to hear about his experiences in Northern Ireland.
	My noble friend Lord Attlee mentioned the Bowman. Will the Minister give a Written Statement after the Recess to bring the House up to date on the progress with that important equipment? My noble friend also asked about the progress of the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, asked about the carriers. I am hearing rumours that an order is about to be placed for 2,000 logistic vehicles. Will the Minister comment on that?
	We need money to pay for all this much-needed equipment. Can the Minister confirm or deny the strong rumours mentioned by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, that £1 billion will be moved from the defence budget to homeland security? I hope that is not true. As the noble and gallant Lord said, the front line is already underfunded. Several noble Lords, notably my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, spoke about the UK nuclear deterrent. I will say only two things about that. First, as my right honourable friend David Cameron made absolutely clear at the weekend, we regard the long-term continuance of the independent UK deterrent as a prudent and necessary insurance policy. Secondly, and this is directly relevant to our debate today, the necessary costs and appropriate long-term continuance must be spread over a suitable period of years as an addition to the regular defence budget and must not be used as an excuse to shave from that budget the money needed now to meet more immediate requirements, a need stressed by so many noble Lords today.
	I am sure that the noble Lord, as the Minister responsible for defence procurement, has already identified the importance of this point in relation to matters for which he has personal responsibility. It may not be too much to hope, given the well publicised conversion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the cause, that the noble Lord will be able to give us the necessary assurances about the additional status of this investment. Several noble Lords have asked about the operational objectives in Afghanistan, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's clarification. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, made a very powerful speech calling for a commission to look into the conduct of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I look forward to the Government's response.
	My noble friend Lord Luke mentioned the poor state of defence accommodation, which is so important for morale. As my noble friend said, most service families care passionately about their homes, which offer such important stability. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, spoke about the importance of uniformed DPRs. I am sure we will return to that issue in Committee on the Armed Forces Bill. I hope that Ministers will do more than hear what has been said today. I hope that they will understand it and, more importantly, act on it.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, for bringing these important issues to the House and for the even-handed and calm way in which he made his points, which he expressed with tremendous authority. I welcome the opportunity to respond to the points that he and other noble Lords have made. It is very important for us to consider these issues in a balanced way. There is no doubt that there are considerable challenges in how we meet the threats that this country faces, but to say that there is a crisis is simply not correct. It is important for us to focus on the specific issues, and I will attempt to do that in answering noble Lords' points. Before I do so, I add my voice to those of other noble Lords who have rightly paid tribute to the men and women of our Armed Forces in the tremendous job that they do. I completely disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Dykes; it is very important for Ministers to continue to do so at every opportunity.
	A number of noble Lords, such as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, raised concerns over the image of the Armed Forces and the role of the public relations offices in the Ministry of Defence. It is important to look at the data. The latest MORI polling on the public's view of the Armed Forces says that 80 per cent of people in this country regard each of the services as among the best in the world, and 3 per cent of the population do not. That suggests that there is no crisis in the confidence in which our Armed Forces are held, which speaks to the effectiveness with which the Ministry of Defence handles its public relations. I stress that the changes to the handling of media relations made by the previous Secretary of State led to a coherent, single voice and involve active participation of serving officers in all the services to provide that voice.
	The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, raised questions about morale, which also led to the question of a defence federation. It is important, again, for us to look at the data. There is no evidence of worsening morale in the Armed Forces. Recruiting is steady and manning remains overall in balance; we have more than 98 per cent of the troops that we need. The figures for personnel going absent without leave are steady. It is important for us to focus on the areas where we recognise and have evidence of serious problems. We have the existing mechanisms for personnel to express their views. I absolutely agree that we must do nothing to undermine the chain of command, but we must be open-minded about, and look at, modern ideas of how we can find and facilitate new ways for people to do so.
	I want briefly to highlight the fact that we recently had in this country the first Veterans' Day, which was an opportunity for us all to honour those who have served in our Armed Forces in the past and the contribution that they make today. This weekend we will commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Somme. As so often in the past, our servicemen and women are helping people less able to help themselves—as they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan—and some of them have made the ultimate sacrifice, including the two soldiers who died in Afghanistan this week. We owe them a great debt.
	I remind the House why we are in Afghanistan. We have about 4,500 service personnel there in support of a UN-authorised, NATO-led mission, ISAF, and are part of the US-led, international coalition that involves 40 countries. We are there to help the Afghan people to rebuild their country to prevent it from again harbouring terrorism. We believe that we have the force package necessary to carry out that task as part of that coalition.
	The mission is clear. There can be no security or stability in Afghanistan unless the Taliban and other illegal groups are tackled. Without international help, democratically elected government in Afghanistan will not take root. We are sending 3,300 personnel to Helmand province as part of the long-planned expansion of ISAF into the south, where government authority and rule of law today do not run. That force will reach its full operational capability this weekend.
	The noble Lord, Lord Garden, raised a concern, highlighted last week, about fears that the ISAF expansion would lead to a US withdrawal. We are confident in the United States' commitment to Afghanistan, NATO and ISAF. We believe that that confidence, based upon continuation of the United States' provision of key and often unique capabilities to the alliance operations in Afghanistan, will continue.
	The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, asked me when Her Majesty's Government knew that no theatre reserve for Afghanistan would be put in place. Initial discussions, scoping the deployment of forces into southern Afghanistan, took place in 2005. We believe that we can make the greatest contribution in that area; it makes the ISAF expansion possible, but within a collective NATO framework. The provision of a reserve within Afghanistan is a decision for NATO.
	The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, asked whether we were there to keep the peace or to defend drugs farmers. I wish to be absolutely clear that we are there to ensure that the rule of law and democratic government can be established in that country. This is a country that depends absolutely upon the drugs trade. We must pursue our aims in partnership with NGOs and other government departments to ensure that those people are provided with an alternative livelihood. This is a form of international development. Because of the nature of Afghanistan's environment, that has to be fairly muscular international development, but we believe that we have the combination across the three government departments to deliver that.
	The noble Lord, Lord Owen, said that there had been an extraordinary degree of incompetence in Iraq. I respect the noble Lord's great experience, but that is simply not correct. It is important to look at the progress taking place today. We have a real opportunity to build upon the fact that Iraq has a democratically elected Government. We now have a strong relationship with the governor in Basra province. People who live in southern Iraq today will tell you that the proportion of the time for which they have electricity has gone up significantly. The data on oil production in Iraq show that it is improving. The Iraqi security forces are strong. Progress is becoming established. That is not to say that we are complacent or that we are underestimating the challenges; the changes are really having an effect and there is no doubt that, by continuing our efforts, we are transforming the country.
	It is not correct to say that we rampaged into Iraq with no proper explanation, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said. The Government would not have taken that action unless we were satisfied that it was lawful. It was taken as a last resort, due to Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of UN resolutions, and the United Kingdom obviously takes its own decisions based upon our security needs.
	The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, asked me to clarify the Government's strategic goals in Iraq. He and other noble and gallant Lords, with their deep experience as ex-chiefs of staff, know how important it is for us to be clear about our strategic goals. We are absolutely clear: we are in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi Government under a United Nations resolution. We are there to do a number of things: training and equipping the Iraqi security forces, and supporting the Iraqi Government with their political and economic reform, which has clearly been done. We are there for as long as the Iraqi Government need us to be there and we are achieving that by working with the coalition and the Iraqis. The evidence that that is taking place is there.
	Of course we recognise the challenges. In Basra there has been a deterioration of late, due to a vacuum in the period taken to form a Government of national unity. In that period, sectarian rivalries and strife in the area have increased. However, now that we have a Government of national unity and a good working relationship with the governor in Basra, we believe that that together with the Basra security plan and the establishment of a state of emergency there by the Government will make a significant difference. We are beginning to see that.

Lord Bramall: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He has painted a rosy picture of the Iraq occupation, but am I not right in thinking that the American Secretary of State recently said that thousands of mistakes were made in the occupation phase in Iraq? Does that not amount to a large level of incompetence?

Lord Drayson: No, my Lords, I do not believe that that corresponds to a large level of incompetence.
	The noble Lord, Lord Garden, asked about the effect of the withdrawal of certain coalition partners' forces, including the Italians and the Japanese. We are confident that the process of handover by states within the regions for which we are acting will not have a negative impact on our troops. We are going through a transition process. We have seen recent progress in al-Muthanna province, and that is what we need to build on through this year.
	Noble Lords have highlighted issues relating to the balance between the resources provided to our Armed Forces and the commitments that they are asked to undertake. We continually review the commitments that our forces undertake, both at home and abroad, to ensure that they are appropriate to the task. The British Armed Forces are exceptionally good at what they do. That means that they are significantly in demand by coalition partners, and I am sure that our friends and allies recognise that a British presence in any coalition operation is greatly valued. As a result, the operational tempo is high and our people are heavily committed.
	This is a challenge which we accept. This is a challenge on which we as a Government are actively working. But I stress that, as the noble and gallant Lords will know, as ex-chiefs of staff, the decisions relating to deployment levels are judgments made by the chiefs of staff. Their judgment today is that these deployment levels are manageable.
	We recognise that we are operating beyond the planning assumptions. Therefore, we are carrying out the necessary changes and reforms to manage that, with a focus on the way in which we go about defence equipment procurement and on the structure of the Armed Forces. Making the Armed Forces appropriately equipped and structured to meet that challenge is a reform which, as a number of noble Lords have said, has been needed for some considerable time. Many of the issues relating to equipment and the structure of our forces go back decades, but this Government are tackling them and we can see that significant progress has been made in a number of areas.
	The effect of all that on recruitment and retention means that we require some 18,000 new recruits each year. This is an environment where the economy is strong and therefore the competition is in itself strong, but our recruitment is good and the retention levels are satisfactory. During the past financial year, we recruited 96 per cent of our requirement—the same as in the previous year. There is no manning crisis. Last year, the Armed Forces were 98.2 per cent manned. However, a number of noble and gallant Lords mentioned the pinch points relating to medical personnel and some logistics personnel, and we recognise those. They require us to respond to those areas and to make progress, and, on another occasion or in writing, I should be happy to provide noble Lords with updated details.
	When I took on the role of Minister for defence procurement, I was struck that a comparison of the level of funding for defence is made on the basis of the proportion of GDP spend, but I do not think that that is the right test to apply. We should be looking at the absolute level of investment within our defence resources but not as a proportion of the country's GDP. We have seen an acceleration of GDP growth over recent years. The absolute level of investment that this Government have made has been the longest consistent increase in investment in the Armed Forces. The record of the previous Government shows that there was a decrease in the level of investment in the Armed Forces. Under this Government, starting from 1997, we have consistently spent more on our Armed Forces, and we have maintained that level of spending.
	Of course, that needs to be balanced with an emphasis on driving efficiencies to ensure that the Armed Forces are provided with the funding, and that they use that funding, in the most efficient way. We have been able to identify £2.8 billion-worth of efficiency savings within the Armed Forces, and that money is being reinvested in defence.
	I was asked about rumours of £1 billion-worth of cuts. I can tell the House that there is no truth in those rumours.
	When we talk about the level of commitments and the significant operations in which our forces are engaged, it is important to recognise that the Treasury funds specific additional costs arising from operations on top of the defence budget. That amounted to an extra £1.25 billion in the last financial year.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Is the Treasury providing extra funding for current operations in Afghanistan?

Lord Drayson: Yes, my Lords. The amount is £1 billion over three years. I want to rattle quite rapidly through some of the issues that have been raised about equipment, not least because it is my area of responsibility. I hope to give noble Lords detailed answers to the many questions that they have asked, but I shall do so quickly.
	We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Levene, an excellent summary of the challenges that we face in defence procurement. This Government are taking a modern approach to balancing the conflicting pressures which the noble Lord clearly explained. We need to recognise the international environment with which we are faced in the defence industry, and we need to make judgments within a framework which is clear to our international partners, to the defence industry and to our Armed Forces. This Government stated in the Defence Industrial Strategy White Paper last year that the Armed Forces' needs come first. There are questions relating to industrial capability, and jobs are very important to the country. But we are absolutely clear about the importance of equipment to our Armed Forces and so, in the decision-making framework, we put the Armed Forces first, and we have stated that as our policy.
	A number of concerns were raised about the Snatch Land Rover in Iraq and its alternatives—the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, referred to the question mark over the RG-31. The noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, said that he has received a number of letters about this. I make it absolutely clear that when I answered the noble Lord's question earlier, the vehicle that I was talking about was the predecessor to the RG-31. It was also called the Mamba and it has been called the Mamba mark 2. The RG-31 offered today is the current version of that vehicle. After giving careful consideration to the matter, we judged the size and mobility of the vehicle not to be appropriate to the needs of our Armed Forces today.
	The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, raised a point about the review being announced and said that surely these things are kept under constant review. That is absolutely the case. Issues relating to the protection of our Armed Forces, including the provision of armoured vehicles, are kept under continual review. That sounds like a trite and easy phrase but, as Minister for defence procurement, I can tell noble Lords that it is carried out very thoroughly indeed. The way in which the Ministry of Defence goes about deploying its resources for science and technology and industrial purposes to provide our forces with the appropriate levels of protection is very impressive. But I have to tell noble Lords that I cannot go into these things on the Floor of the House. They go to the heart of the level of the threat that our forces face. I do my best in this House to give your Lordships a clear exposition of these issues but there are some areas that we just cannot go into here. If noble Lords agree, I shall be happy to offer them a briefing at the Ministry of Defence to give them an opportunity to understand that better. We are taking urgent action relating to the threat facing our forces in a number of areas. That action is already having an impact today and we expect to see its effects.
	The noble Lord, Lord Garden, and the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, raised the issue of helicopters. In response to a question posed by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, relating to Lynx and Puma, last week we announced an agreement with AugustaWestland both to provide additional helicopters in the form of the future Lynx and, importantly, to incentivise the company to improve the serviceability and availability of the helicopters that we fly today. That is an example of this Government taking real action to address the issues. Here is a company that has been motivated, through the placing of a new contract for new helicopters which we have to buy, to improve the way that its services provide spares to our existing helicopter fleet, and that will go directly to the heart of the serviceability of our fleet.
	I shall write to noble Lords with updates on other areas of equipment and shall give clear details of the progress on the FSTA and FRES. However, in the remaining time, I want to touch on the issue of Trident. As a number of noble Lords have highlighted, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said that there will be a White Paper by the end of the year setting out the options relating to the potential replacement of the nuclear deterrent. The Ministry of Defence is actively working on those options, which will then be described to both Houses of Parliament; there will be an opportunity to debate them thoroughly. I am sure noble Lords will recognise the importance of decisions relating to the potential replacement of the nuclear deterrent and to the maritime industry.
	The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, raised issues about the overall resource levels which were provided to our maritime fleet. I can confirm to the House that, this year, the resource levels have been restored to normal after a two-year period when resources were reprioritised for overseas operations.
	My noble friend Lord Truscott asked what we are doing to build on those reforms, as regards our defence industrial strategy, in terms of research and technology. For the first time in a considerable period, we have increased the Ministry of Defence's research budget. We plan for it to rise in line with inflation over the next four years. We have also carried out a review of all of our defence research and technology and, later this year, we shall be announcing the results of that technology review.
	The noble Lord, Lord Luke, asked a number of questions relating to defence housing. I shall write to the noble Lord with those answers, as I do not have time to go through them today.
	In summary, our forces are busy. We recognise that and the significant challenges we face in ensuring that we respond to today's environment. We also face challenges on the pace of technological change in industry and ensuring that we provide our Armed Forces with the equipment that they need to do their job. We are addressing those challenges.
	As we focus on these issues, I hope that we can build a consensus across the House because they are too important for party politics. Much can be learnt from the experiences of the past and I look forward to continuing this debate in the House. I am grateful to a number of noble Lords, in particular the noble and gallant Lords—former chiefs of staff—for sharing with me their wisdom and experience on these matters.

Lord Inge: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this important debate, which I have found educational. I have been struck by the number of issues raised by many Members. I hope the Minister listened very carefully, as a common theme ran through them.
	On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, on the strategic direction of the war, I am not sure that I would want some great committee to be set up, but at least we should look at the strategic direction of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The linkage between the two is enormously important. I did not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dykes. I certainly did not intend to give the impression that there is a crisis in morale. I was saying that there are indications about federations and unions and that we need to listen to what is being said. The morale of the Armed Forces, despite the huge pressure on them, is fantastic. I am second to none in saying, "Thank you", to them for what they do.
	I believe that the Minister will write to noble Lords about the Defence Procurement Agency and the reorganisation that has been taking place in the Defence Logistics Organisation. They are two very important parts to ensuring that our Armed Forces have the kit and logistic support that they deserve. Referring to what I said earlier, I have an idea about what we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan, but I am not clear how we shall achieve that. That discussion is still to take place.
	The noble Lord, Lord Garden, talked about federations. My noble and gallant friend Lord Boyce asked me to ask the noble Lord whether those who have federations and unions have ever won. My final point is that adequate funding is the ghost that hangs over all that has been said. I thank noble Lords for taking part and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Emissions Trading Scheme

Lord Rooker: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement made earlier in another place by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
	"Mr Speaker, I would like to make an announcement about our proposals for the second phase of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. Today we are announcing the level of our cap. In due course, we will present to the Commission our full and formal national allocation plan.
	"The case for tackling climate change, and the human contribution to it, is overwhelming. The scientific consensus is wide and deep, and the need for international and domestic action, across all aspects of economic and social life, is very strong. In the UK, we can take pride that we are projected to cut our emissions of greenhouses gases by 23 to 25 per cent from 1990 levels over the Kyoto commitment period. That is nearly double the level of the Kyoto targets. However, UK emissions of carbon dioxide are rising. We remain on track to meet our Kyoto targets, but we will, on current trends, fall short of our national goal of a 20 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2010. Our challenge is to take action now to avoid the environmental but also economic and social costs of inaction.
	"The EU Emissions Trading Scheme is the cornerstone of a Europe-wide drive to reduce emissions from high energy intensive sectors. It currently covers around 11,000 installations across Europe, and companies in the scheme in the UK account for some 45 per cent of UK carbon dioxide emissions. The Emissions Trading Scheme gives a clear incentive to industry to invest in low carbon technologies of the future, but achieves carbon reductions at the lowest possible cost.
	"We are now in the second year of the first phase of the scheme. The results from year one have provided a first opportunity to judge allocation against emissions and most member states' caps for phase 1 do not provide the scarcity the scheme demands. The UK cap was 245 million tonnes, and our system has worked well. The Government imposed the shortfall in allowances on the electricity supply industry and all other sectors were allocated according to need. And, as intended, all but the electricity supply sector are living within their allocations.
	"The Commission has used the information from the first phase to assess what member states' caps should be for phase 2 and set out indicative figures that require substantial cuts from most member states. Phase 1 was in many ways a trial period. Phase 2 coincides with the first Kyoto period (2008-12) and states which do not take the measures necessary within this period to reach their Kyoto targets will either have to purchase Kyoto allowances and credits from other states or will face penalties for missing targets.
	"In March, in our consultation on the draft national allocation plan, we set out a range of UK reductions of emissions during phase 2, from 3 million tonnes of carbon to 8 million tonnes. At the time of consultation this was equivalent to a cap of 234 million to 252 million allowances a year, representing 234 million to 252 million tonnes of CO2.
	"There have been important changes since we published the draft national allocation plan. Our projections for emissions in 2010 have risen by 3 million tonnes of carbon for the UK as a whole, and by 1.1 million tonnes of carbon for the installations covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
	"In these circumstances, we believe it is essential to make the maximum effort consistent with the range on which we consulted; in other words, reductions of 8 million tonnes of carbon per year below business as usual, equivalent to a reduction of 29 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. That is now, since the change in projections, equivalent to an annual allocation of 238 million allowances to UK installations covered by the scheme in phase 1. These figures may change slightly to reflect the expansion of the scheme and removal of those installations that emit the smallest amounts of carbon dioxide.
	"We have looked carefully at the possible effects on business and consumers before making our final decision. Our intention is that, for industrial sectors, which include those most open to international competition, allocations should continue to be on the basis of need. In respect of electricity supply, however, the sector is mainly insulated from international competition and this sector's allowances could therefore be set at a lower level, and be subject to auctioning.
	"Phase 2 of the Emissions Trading Scheme allows for a maximum level of auctioning of allowances of 10 per cent. We propose to set the level of auctioning in the UK at 7 per cent. Obviously, the final amount raised by the auction cannot be determined in advance, but it will be substantial.
	"We will build on the trading scheme agreement and go further. We believe there is a major opportunity for the UK not just to invest in renewable energy, other non-nuclear low carbon technologies and energy efficiency, but also to build successful businesses in these fields. We will establish a new joint Defra/DTI environmental transformation fund, administered by my right honourable friend the Trade and Industry Secretary and myself, to grasp this opportunity. Final details of the scale and scope of the fund will be announced in the spending review for implementation, like the Emissions Trading Scheme, in 2008.
	"The EU Emissions Trading Scheme is also linked to a global carbon market and has been a major driver in its development. Project credits—which are credits generated in developing countries through the clean development mechanism, or in other developed countries by joint implementation projects—may be used to help meet the caps set for operators. The use of these credits provides a driver for sustainable energy projects in the developing world and for technology transfer. However, member states need to ensure a balance between domestic and international effort. UK companies are already at the forefront of this market and we want that to continue.
	"In the UK we are providing for the use of these credits to meet up to 66 per cent of the effort in phase 2. In effect, this means that 5.3 million tonnes of carbon—that is, about 19.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide—from clean development and joint implementation projects can be used, which is equivalent to 8 per cent of the total cap. All installations in the UK may use project credits to meet emissions up to 8 per cent of their allocation.
	"The EU Emissions Trading Scheme has an impact on electricity prices via the cost of carbon allowances. That cost is driven by the cumulative effect of all member states' decisions, not by the decision of any individual member state for the citizens of that country. Many factors drive electricity prices, including global fuel prices and the weather. But our estimate is that the impact of the proposal, relative to the phase 1 cap, will be a one-off rise in industrial energy prices in the region of 1 per cent, and approximately half that for domestic users.
	"Our decision to set the cap at the top end of the range of effort on which we consulted sends a clear message that the emissions trading scheme is here to stay, that the Government are committed to making it work, providing clear, progressive rewards for a shift to low-carbon technologies, and that the UK is determined to maintain its leadership role on this issue. Today's decision will set us on course to deliver a 16.2 per cent reduction in emissions, against 1990 figures, by 2010. We said when we launched the climate change programme review in March this year that it was not the last word. We will use further opportunities, including the energy review and the environmental transformation fund, to help us move progressively towards our 2010 target.
	"EU member states are required to use emissions trading as a means to deliver their Kyoto Protocol commitments for 2008 to 2012. The level of ambition that individual member states set for the reductions to be made by the sectors covered by emissions trading will be an important element in the price of carbon allowances. Now that member states will need to show that they are meeting their Kyoto targets, and with the Commission having phase 1 emissions data, the UK will expect to see more stringent caps enforced in phase 2. We will therefore encourage and support the European Commission in its efforts to ensure tough caps, to provide greater long-term certainty, to help the smooth running of the trading system, and to avoid potential competitive distortions. I spoke to Commissioner Dimas this morning to emphasise this point. It is important that, in the EU, we all push together for a trading scheme which delivers real emission reductions.
	"Phase 2 also forms an important element in the broader consideration of our long-term carbon policy framework. Concurrently, my right honourable friend the Trade and Industry Secretary will next month be reporting the findings of the energy review, in which the Government are reviewing the UK's progress against the medium and long-term energy White Paper goals, including our 2050 carbon reduction goal, and the options for further steps to achieve them.
	"My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made clear that climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. This target for phase 2 will support the development of the global carbon market, and we will therefore continue to work with our EU partners to ensure that negotiations for future commitments under the Kyoto Protocol make clear and convincing progress. We will continue to work through the Gleneagles dialogue launched through the UK presidency of the G8 to search for consensus on the practical measures for tackling climate change. The case for taking action is overwhelming. The speed at which the world responds to that case will determine the effectiveness and the positive economic impact of our response. Today's announcement takes another step towards our long-term objective of a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made by his right honourable friend in another place two or three hours ago. It is no less welcome for the fact that it has come as a surprise to most of those working in this field. Inevitably, with a Statement of some length and considerable detail, it gives rise to a number of questions.
	The collapse of the emissions trading market early this year highlighted the weakness of the approach of the European nation states to the allocation process in phase 1. It also highlighted the weakness of the Commission's position on adjudication and control of those bids, which is what they were at that stage. The effect in the market was a huge loss of faith in emissions trading as a scheme to limit carbon dioxide emissions. We cannot afford that. It also caused considerable loss of faith in the intention and determination of mainland European nations to tackle and limit their emissions of carbon dioxide. We cannot afford that either. Phase 2 must work to much greater effect than phase 1 was able to do.
	In those circumstances, one has to ask whether the Government are satisfied about the determination of the European Commission to ensure that it arrives at allocations that will be effective at nation-state level. In phase 1, there was some question about who was responsible and whether nation states could bid or the Commission should set the target. Are the Government now satisfied that other nation states in Europe are sufficiently determined to set realistic targets to make this scheme work? Once again, we cannot afford any failure in that regard.
	Finally, are the Government satisfied that the European Commission has a sufficiently robust system of audit that is—to borrow a phrase from the Government—"fit for purpose" to ensure that the operation of phase 2 will be real and effective, which phase 1 was not?
	I welcome the Government's intention to auction a proportion of the allocations in this new phase. The Commission permits the auctioning of up to 10 per cent of the allocation. It would be interesting to know why and how the Government arrived at 7 per cent. That said, having this earlier income from the sale of credits that people have to purchase at an assessed value must help to create a more realistic market, provided the total of the allocations is correct. In another place, the Minister's right honourable friend the Secretary of State guesstimated—I think that would be the term—that the auction might produce about £150 million. It would be interesting to know whether the Government have any ideas about how those funds might be used. It is essential that that income, which comes with the direct purpose of limiting carbon emissions, should be used to fund schemes that will aid that purpose. However, I am all too aware that dedicating funds for a particular purpose when they come in is rather difficult for the Treasury, which prefers to take money into the general fund and then reallocate it, often to something rather different.
	I also note the creation of the Defra/DTI Environmental Transformation Fund. We do not yet know how resourced it is to be or whether it is to be used only for investment in the general renewable energy field, although it looks as though that might be the case. Most importantly, we do not know what will be its relationship to the Carbon Trust and others who are already working in the field. It would be interesting if the Minister could give us more information on that.
	This is a helpful Statement. It is a move in the right direction. It is to be hoped that phase 2 will work properly. I look forward to the Minister's reply.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, we on these Benches also welcome the Statement. It gives us just the skeleton and will be fleshed out by the formal national allocation plan and a lot of my questions will be reserved for that phase of the business. However, phase 2 is important and is one of the main tools that this country has for getting us on track to meet our Kyoto targets. Now that we have reached phase 2, we have to avoid some of the failures of phase 1.
	One of the most difficult things across industry and for the public of phase 1 is that it was not very clear that the polluter pays. This issue got lost in a blizzard of figures, percentages and statistics. People really want to know whether this is being effective in reducing carbons admissions.
	The Minister said that the provision would cover 45 per cent of our emissions of the sectors included. That is critical. The Minister has been silent on a couple of areas because they will fall within the fuller plan, and on whether aviation and transport in any form will be included in the full plan. There is a disconnect with which the Government I am sure struggle, which is common in every government in Europe—that is, we have national allocation plans within a single market.
	At the moment energy and the allocating plans are a national matter. That makes it very difficult. Will the Minister give his reaction to the setting of the German levels? When we reach phase 3, will there be any thought of setting the levels at a European level and therefore making sure that no country falls for the temptation of setting a lower level on the basis of safeguarding its industries?
	I was cheered to hear the Minister make the announcement about the Defra/DTI environmental transformation fund. Is the intention that the auctioning process will produce the revenue for the fund? It was not clear to me where the revenue would come from. I imagine that the Government have thought about the size of the fund. I see that the scale and scope of it will be announced in the spending review for implementation in 2008, so there is a while to wait. Will the Minister give some idea where the proceeds from the auction will go?
	I have a couple of final questions on the shape of the national allocation plan. What incentives will there be to ensure that new entrants invest in low-carbon fuels and efficient technologies? Again for new entrants, will there be clear definitions and consistent applications of the relevant provisions to support incentive structures and fairness? For the plants for which closure is the only option, will this scheme sufficiently push to close those old, inefficient and highly polluting plants?
	These Benches welcome this very important tool. It takes us through to 2012. If the first phase was a learning curve for not making the same mistakes in the second phase, perhaps it is disappointing that we have not ironed out all the faults. Early on in this 2007–08 period we must ensure that by the time we get into the post-Kyoto scenario, which will be phase 3, the scheme is as perfect as possible at a European level.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the responses of the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, not least because they have kept off some of the technical stuff in what is quite a complicated Statement. I am doubly grateful to the noble Baroness because she opened her remarks by saying that she would save most of her questions for when we make the final allocation plan, which has to be done by 31 December. I look forward to being more onboard then.
	I am very pleased that nobody has questioned that there is a real problem—that is very important for business and the wider population. There is a major problem out there; the science is clearly with us; and there are disputes about it. On a visit to one of the department's laboratories the other day, I came across a couple of facts that have stayed with me. Things were explained in a way that puts the matter across to ordinary bods and industry. For example, the amount of fresh water lost from the Greenland ice cap in recent years is enough to cover France to a depth of 35 kilometres. That is an enormous change. The other fact is that of the 10 hottest years ever recorded, nine of them were in the past 10 years. So something is happening out there which we must get a grip on. Climate change is a major issue.
	I did not understand the surprise of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon Smith, about the Statement. We were obliged to make a Statement by 30 June, and we have done so. We have met that commitment.
	We did a lot more than others in phase 1 and the proposed cap moves us towards our domestic target and confirms our position as leaders in the climate change debate. We make no apology for wanting to be a leader in the debate, as the Prime Minister has made absolutely clear. The commission has sent a very strong message about expectations of member states. Colleagues are quite right to ask about that.
	The recent article in the Financial Times by Commissioner Dimas stated that the Commission will use all political and legal tools at its disposal to ensure that national plans are fully consistent with Kyoto commitments and the verified data, so that there is a scarcity on the market and a level playing field for all participants. It has stated its intention to use actual, verified emissions from 2005 as a starting point for assessing member states' national allocation plans. That will mean more significant cuts from the majority of other member states. That makes the point that the noble Baroness asked about: we have information from phase 1. We did not have it before we started. So we are moving forward.
	The United Kingdom supports the messages from the Commission. We are actively lobbying to ensure that all member states set caps in line with the requirements of the directive to ensure real scarcity in the market. Ministerial calls are being made to Germany, France, Spain and Italy to build support across Europe for that leadership.
	On the level of auction and the 7 per cent figure, a range of factors were listed in the consultation. I understand that, at the moment, there is no auction and the figure may move to 10 per cent. The figure of 7 per cent takes into consideration the 20 million tonnes of CO2 that we think are missing from phase 1. I have seen constant references to that. Those in the know, which I presume includes those on the two Opposition Front Benches, will understand that there is an issue about a missing 20 million tonnes. The consideration of the auction takes account of that.
	The fund is a major opportunity. We will grasp the opportunity of the new fund to invest in renewable energy, non-nuclear low-carbon technologies and energy efficiency. There are a range of issues associated with that to deal with. Indeed, one of the Select Committees of your Lordships' House is undertaking an inquiry into biomass energy and use of fuel. So a lot of work is going on.
	The question that the noble Baroness asked about aviation and transport is wholly legitimate. It is like the dog that did not bark. I understand that the Commission is due to adopt proposals to include aviation later this year. We hope that aviation can be included in phase 2 and we are considering extending that to other sectors in later phases and working with the Commission on that.
	As I said, we are now in the second year of the first phase of the scheme. The results from year one have provided a first opportunity to judge allocations against emissions. As has been implied from what happened in the market earlier this year, it has been discovered that most member states' caps do not provide the scarcity that the scheme demands. The UK cap is 245 million tonnes and I understand that our system has worked quite well.
	As for the environmental transformation fund using the proceeds from the auction, the decisions on the fund must be part of the normal process of public expenditure decision-making, as was mentioned in the Statement. The fact that we are auctioning 7 per cent of allowances will create receipts that will improve the expenditure context. That is new money designed to channel money into investment in renewables and low-carbon technologies.
	If we use our brains and our innovation, we are on the cusp of helping to create in this country whole new industries in which we can almost repeat the Industrial Revolution in our offering to the rest of the world. We have an early start in many ways, and there are many examples from around the country of attempts at renewables, which, as I say, give us enormous potential.
	New entrants will receive a level of allocation that incentivises the best available technologies. That is the only answer that I can give the noble Baroness. This is important; we want new entrants, but we want them to be incentivised. The whole scheme is a very low-cost way of introducing low-carbon technologies.
	So far as future plans are concerned, the Commission is reviewing the directive and drafting a proposal to amend it, and we are already working with the Commission to ensure that lessons are learnt.
	Finally, the noble Baroness asked about some of the older plants and how we will make inefficient plants close. Events will encourage investment in low-carbon technology. A stronger cap across all member states will stimulate demand in the carbon market and encourage investment in cleaner technology. The whole point of trading is that the Government do not decide which plant closes; businesses do. In other words, it is a commercial decision. That is the whole point. If we can build that in, we do not get political or non-market inference; we get something that makes people outside see that it is worth investing in change. That is the best way in which to bring about change. It is certainly preferred above all state direction. We must have a level playing field, which is why we have to work within the context of the EU.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I welcome the Statement on this important subject and the Government's decision to set the cap at the top end of the range of effort on which they consulted. But the cost of carbon allowances, and therefore their impact, is driven, as the Statement pointed out, by the cumulative effect of all member states' decisions and the level of ambition of individual member states.
	The review published this week by the Carbon Trust chief economist pointed out that if member states do not demand sufficiently large emissions reductions, the system will unravel and be ineffective. It is now clear that, during phase 1, there was considerable over-allowance by individual member states and by member states collectively. As the Statement put it,
	"most member states' caps for phase 1 do not provide the scarcity the scheme demands".
	It follows that cuts in allowances for phase 2 must not relate to those made in phase 1, but need to be assessed against a baseline of the recalculated 2005 emissions data that are now available.
	The Minister said that the UK will expect more stringent caps to be enforced in phase 2, and will support the European Commission in its efforts to ensure tough caps. Good—I welcome that—but will the Government make every possible effort to ensure that the reductions are made from the revised data and not from the over-allowances for phase 1? I think the Minister began to indicate that that was the Government's position when he responded to a previous question, but I think it is the crucial issue on which the industry awaits an answer. Can he also assure me that the UK has given the lead by calculating our allowances on that basis?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I hope I can give the noble Lord that assurance. I do not want to get into any "me, too-ism" about what other states are doing. There was some erroneous reporting early this week on the BBC. Obsessed as it is with seeking to undermine this Government, it is now seeking to undermine the German Government in its report stating that the Germans are going for only 0.6. Frankly, that is far from the truth, although I have not heard whether the BBC has apologised to the Germans.
	The thrust of the noble Lord's question is such that I would want to say yes, because that is the way in which we want to go. We want to give the lead and genuinely to learn from phase 1. There is no doubt that in some ways we were on uncharted territory in phase 1 when we sought to introduce a market into this area. It was probably never going to be perfect in every member state. On the scarcity in the scheme, the Commission has stated that it will use all the political and legal weapons at its disposal. It said that in the Commission and in the important Financial Times article. We will use verified data emissions from 2005. We are taking a lead, which we are proud to take.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I join the praise which the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has given for this Statement, but, significantly, the United States is noticeable only for its absence from helping to resolve this issue. How are the Government and the European Union facing that issue?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, we are setting a good example to the rest of the planet.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, if the Emissions Trading Scheme is to be the cornerstone of Europe's drive, as the Minister put it in the Statement, is he satisfied that the political and legal tools available to the Commission are capable of reaching results which can be enforced when there is agreement between the member states? Would it not be appropriate to seek, before setting national targets, to have those discussions on what other nations are proposing to do, partly because of the competition consequences of not reaching agreed results?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, broadly speaking, I do not have any information indicating that there are not any political and legal tools missing. A paragraph in the Statement says that member states which have not done what they should will have to purchase credits from elsewhere, so that will cost them money. If they do not do that, they will have to pay a penalty. If I remember rightly from the briefing, the penalty was about 1.3 times the difference of what they should have done. That, I understand, is implied in what has already been agreed by the European Commission. From that point of view, the legal tools are in place. If they are not, I will write to the noble Lord.

Criminal Justice: Women

Lord Ramsbotham: rose to call attention to the case for a women's justice board to oversee the treatment of and conditions for women in the criminal justice system; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, in moving this Motion I am very conscious that this is by no means the first time that this issue has been brought before your Lordships' House. In preparing for the debate, I looked up the last time that women in prison were debated. In a debate in October 2004, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in summing up as Minister for the Home Office, said:
	"When noble Lords read this debate in Hansard, they will see that what I am basically describing is the women's justice board, which was advocated but has not yet been created by the Home Office. I supported it from this Dispatch Box when I was a Home Office Minister. It has still not been brought about, but I think that we are doing it in all but name. The proof will be in the pudding. It is not my job to make policy on the hoof. Nevertheless, the recommendation was made and it has widespread support, but it has not been put into operation by the Home Office".—[Official Report, 28/10/04; col. 1418.]
	My reason for initiating the debate was triggered by the recent announcement of the re-roling of Brockhill women's prison in Worcestershire into a male prison; and particularly by a comment about that by my successor Anne Owers in her annual report as Chief Inspector of Prisons for 2004–05. She said:
	"The proposal to re-role Brockhill suggests inadequate attention to, and even marginalisation of, the needs of women. Eighty per cent of the adult women lived within 50 miles of the prison, and many were trying to maintain contact with families and dependent children. A brand-new, purpose-built and much needed detoxification and healthcare centre had recently been built, to meet the specific needs of women".
	In preparing for the debate I also contacted a number of people. I was particularly interested in a comment from Madeleine Moon, the Labour MP for Bridgend. She bemoaned that in addition to what had happened, it made it even more difficult for women from Wales to go to a women's prison near that province.
	This is not a new problem. Indeed, looking back over the history of the Prison Service, you see that frequently there have been disasters followed by various inquiries which resulted in change, but unless there is a disaster there does not seem to be change. The riots in Strangeways in 1990 were followed by one of the great penal documents of all time, in which my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf and my predecessor, Sir Stephen Tumim, made the most perceptive comments about what should happen and, in particular, concentrated on appropriate management. In 1993 and 1994, there were escapes from the high security prisons at Whitemoor and Parkhurst, which were investigated by a retired Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir John Woodcock, and a former companion of mine, Sir John Learmont. They recommended the appointment of a director of high security prisons, the result of which has been one part of the Prison Service with someone responsible and accountable for all those prisoners and, until this year, no escape from a high security prison. I was told that the reason people were so keen on that was to avoid embarrassing Ministers. It did, however, result in the sacking of the director-general of the Prison Service.
	When I inspected Holloway, my first inspection as Chief Inspector of Prisons in December 1995, I was absolutely appalled by what I found. Of the myriad memories I have of that, three things stand out. The first was finding that women were routinely chained while in labour. That must have been known to the prison authorities, and by implication to Ministers, and yet it was being condoned. The second was being shown the official Prison Service forms on which injuries to women prisoners were recorded. The forms contained the outline of a male body because the service had no forms for women. The third was going after the inspection to see the director-general of the Prison Service, asking whether I could meet the director of women and being told that there wasn't one. When I asked who laid down the policy for women, he said: "A civil servant in the policy office". I then asked, "Who oversees that policy?", and was told that it was the area manager. I went on to ask, "Who sees to it that there is consistency of policy between what happens to women in a prison in Lancashire and those in a prison in London?". The reply was, "No one".
	On the question of time, that conversation with the director-general of the Prison Service took place the equivalent of the whole of World War I and the whole of World War 2 bar the last three months ago—and still there is no director of women, although there has been one on the way.
	I decided that I should have a report to carry out a thematic review of women in prison. I should like to read out a paragraph from my preface to that report, written in July 1997:
	"Central to this report is our strongly held view that the women's prison system ought to be managed, as an entity, by one Director, with responsibility and accountability for all that happens within the women's estate. As is pointed out over and over again, there is an urgent need for a thorough analysis of the needs of women prisoners, and a national strategy for implementing and managing policies appropriate to satisfying them. The present system of geographical management works positively against the all-important consistency that the treatment of such a separate group of prisoners requires. Our recommendations are, I hope, clear and unambiguous, and are put forward for examination by the Prison Service in the context of their own strategic review of the estate. But they also have an underlying purpose, which is to encourage the Prison Service to make better arrangements for the separate management of the fast-rising numbers of women in prison, and to provide regimes appropriate to their needs, not merely to adapt those designed for men. This does not require another policy desk, it requires someone charged with implementing policy, as well as assessing, obtaining and allocating the necessary resources of staff, money and facilities".
	I had 160 recommendations, of which I will mention only two. First, transitional prisons in urban centres should be developed to serve the resettlement needs of female prisoners. Secondly, managers in women's prisons should give more emphasis to ensuring that the suicide prevention system is used properly.
	Since then, I have counted 31 reports of various kinds from various organisations, all saying roughly the same as we said in 1997. As my successor illustrated in a report that she published only this year, much of that remains to be done. I should like to quote from some of the reports. Justice for Women: the need for reform, published by the Prison Reform Trust in 2000, made the specific recommendation that a national women's justice board should be established forthwith as a separate authority, charged with the development and implementation of policy for women offenders, consistent with all the principles. That should cover women's supervision, rehabilitation and support centres, for which a network was recommended; geographically dispersed custodial units to replace the existing system, which has silos in inappropriate places; and a great amount of attention to transition between prison and the community.
	That was followed by a follow-up report of mine, published in 2001. I went through all the recommendations that I had made and found that an awful lot had not been achieved. That was followed by a very good report from the Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System, by the Fawcett Society, which contains a number of very relevant points. The commission was chaired by Vera Baird MP, and in its report, published in 2004, it talks about women faring particularly badly in the system because their specific needs are not being looked at. It talked about a review which had been carried out by the Prison Service in which a separate management system had been put in place but was now dismantled. We were concerned that without a specific structure to deal with women offenders at both policy and operational level, the National Offender Management Service will fail to address fully the nature of female offending.
	There have been two follow-up reports, which I do not have time to quote, both saying the same thing. As they pointed out, it has been said that a women's operational management board is not needed because the Minister who is replying to this debate and, at that time, the two Ministers responsible for penal affairs in the House of Commons, the chief executive of the National Offender Management Service and the National Offender Manager were all women. It was therefore felt that there was no need for anyone else to consider women's issues.
	I fear that the evidence, particularly that produced by my successor, suggests that that is not so. I quote from her last study, entitled Women in Prison, in which she says:
	"The assignment of a single operational manager to manage women's prisons in 2000 brought about greater consistency and more sharing of best practice . . . However, during 2004, the women's estate was disbanded and the management of women's prisons reverted to local areas. This has raised significant concerns that women-specific policies and procedures may be diluted or lost; particularly as there is now no specific policy lead for women within the National Offender Management Service. It is imperative that finances are ring-fenced for the women's estate as well as pressure applied to ensure that these policies and procedures are fully implemented".
	I have quoted all those people because they are experts in this field and they are all speaking from experience. What you are hearing is the true voice of people who have been looking and reporting on the facts.
	The aim given to the criminal justice system in 1997 was to protect the public by preventing crime. It is a good aim, but it was given to the wrong people. The prison and probation services are engaged only when a crime has been committed. The aim is to prevent reoffending or, as was so well put by the governor of a young offender establishment, to prevent the next victim. That matches very neatly with the statement of purpose of the Prison Service, which is:
	"It is our duty to keep securely those committed by the courts, to treat them with humanity and to help them to lead useful and law-abiding lives".
	To do that effectively the Prison Service has to make provision for many different types of prisoner, with their myriad different problems, and to put in place a management structure that can ensure that their treatment and conditions match the statement of purpose. Exactly the same applies to the probation service with its responsibility for all those who have to serve their sentence in the community.
	My case for the appointment of a women's justice board, already recognised by the Government as I have just quoted, boils down to this. The needs of women of whatever age who come into the hands of the criminal justice system are different from those of men, as are the domestic pressures with which they have to cope, including family responsibilities. If they are to be helped to live useful and law-abiding lives, those differences need to be recognised and appropriate treatment and conditions provided. There are far too many women in prison and far too many are held far too far away from their domestic and family responsibilities. I am therefore extremely interested to know what factors allowed the Minister to make the change at Brockhill, as opposed to the other factors that must have been put to her for leaving it where it was. It is the only women's prison in the West Midlands. With 80 per cent of the people there within 50 miles of home, it was the best situated prison in the country for them.
	We are continually hearing extolled the virtues of the vision of NOMS—because NOMS is not yet a reality. The reality is that it is 1,647 civil servants and two additional tiers of management. It is not much else at the moment. One of the Government's successes has been the formation of the Youth Justice Board, particularly the multidisciplinary youth offending teams, which are part of the responsibility of local authorities. In recommending a women's justice board along the lines of that proposed by the Prison Reform Trust, I am also recommending the formation of adult offending teams—male and female—also to be the responsibility of local authorities. The beauty of that concept is that it makes provision for local agencies—public, private, and not for profit—to be included in work done with local offenders. Moreover, if the supervision of less serious offenders were made the responsibility of such offending teams, it would free up the desperately overstretched probation service to concentrate on the heavy-end offenders—offenders whose treatment, or lack of it, continues to excite hysterical attention in the media.
	I hope that the Government will look at all the facts and evidence and realise how often so many people have already put the proposal to them. Rather than yet another report—and this is not an aspersion at all on the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, who has been given yet another report to do—instead of programmes, bodies and everything else, the Government should consider history. It tells us that necessary change happens only when someone is made responsible and accountable for it. That is what this board would do. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for securing this debate. It is simply a coincidence that this issue is being debated on the day that the Zahid Mubarek inquiry report is published. The report contains 88 major recommendations and it may take about a week to digest, but I am sure that there will be another day to debate its contents.
	There is a common theme of systematic disadvantage faced by women as victims, offenders and practitioners. Women are pushed into a system designed by men for men. Female and male offenders have different needs due to their different backgrounds and patterns of offending. There has been a disproportionate rise in the number of women in prison—up by 126 per cent over the past decade, compared with a 46 per cent rise in the male prison population.
	The gender equality duty comes into force in April 2007. It will require public bodies, including government departments and criminal justice agencies, to take account of the different needs of women suspects, defendants, offenders and prisoners. At this time of ongoing reforms to the criminal justice system, there is an urgent need for a strategy to ensure equality for women in the system and for a structure at senior level to ensure the implementation of this strategy. These are the conclusions reached by the Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System. I declare an interest as a member of that commission.
	It is at this point that an unequivocal statement of policy is not enough; we need a comprehensive strategy, cutting across government departments and voluntary sector agencies that are involved in such work. We also need to understand the relationship between victimisation and offending. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is right to draw attention to the need to look at all parts of the criminal justice system. We should include in that the voluntary agencies and other statutory agencies to ensure that that relationship is understood. There are undoubtedly a large number of women in prison who have a history of abuse or victimisation, which often leads to self-harm.
	Another area of serious concern is how the criminal justice system is perceived by victims of rape and domestic violence. They are poorly treated throughout the system and have low reporting rates. I commend those police forces that have made real efforts in recent years, but it is still the case that the treatment of victims varies significantly between and within police forces. We have to take a serious look at why convictions for rape have remained almost static. The justice gap between reports and convictions is very wide.
	I am delighted that the Home Office has welcomed the commission's report. We await the Minister's observation as to how its recommendations will be implemented, but let me offer a solution that I am sure the Minister will welcome. I have often argued in your Lordships' House about extending the role of the Youth Justice Board; I am now more than convinced that there is a powerful case to set up a women's justice board, because to a large extent we fail to deal with women who are victimised and women who offend.
	The criminal justice system is compartmentalised to take into account the special and separate needs of women. We can tamper with existing systems, but that has not delivered and is unlikely to have an impact on matters affecting women. A new direction is necessary. Over the past decade, the courts have responded to the growing mood of toughness in penal policy by adopting a more punitive stance towards women offenders. The number of women in prisons has risen more than twice as fast as the number for the male prison population, but most women who are sent to prison are neither violent nor dangerous and the majority have few previous convictions. The rapidly rising use of prison for women is not due to a rising tide of female violence; it is mainly due to the courts' greater readiness to lock up non-violent women offenders.
	Research shows that most women prisoners were living in poverty before going to prison and often faced multiple debts. The process of imprisonment frequently results in women losing their accommodation and possessions and increased destitution on release, pushing them further into a downward spiral of hardship. Many women prisoners are the mothers of young children. While the mothers are in prison, those children have to be taken into care or looked after under makeshift arrangements involving relatives, which can adversely affect their long-term intellectual and emotional development and be the cause of later delinquency or instability. That means that policies supposedly intended to prevent crime are increasingly likely to be a cause of crime in future generations.
	Against this background, what is the case for the establishment of a women's justice board? There is no doubt that the Youth Justice Board has significantly improved arrangements for dealing with juvenile offenders. There is an equally strong case for the establishment of a women's justice board. The needs of women offenders are sufficiently distinct to justify establishing a board with the task of ensuring that provision for women offenders meets their special needs. Because women offenders are a minority of those coming before the courts and an even smaller minority of those in prison, their special needs are much more likely to be overlooked if they remain as an afterthought tacked on to a system that is largely geared to the needs of men.
	In what ways are women offenders' characteristics and needs different from those of male offenders? First, a much higher proportion of women prisoners than male prisoners have mental health problems. Surveys show that more women prisoners have a psychiatric history before entering prisons. Many more have a history of self-harm than do male prisoners. More have personality disorders, neurotic disorders, learning disabilities and problems of substance abuse, and more have more than one diagnosis. Many more women prisoners have suffered past physical or sexual abuse at the hands of adult partners.
	Secondly, a much higher proportion of women prisoners are sole carers for young children. In most cases where male prisoners are parents of young children, the child's mother is looking after them on the outside. In only a quarter of cases of mothers in prisons are the children being looked after by the current or former partner. There is another factor. Women are much more likely to be in prison a long way away from their home. This makes visits for the children and other relatives more difficult. With the mounting pressure of numbers, that problem has grown, as women are increasingly transferred to whichever prison, anywhere in the country, has a vacancy.
	The number of female prisoners from minority ethnic groups is even more disproportionate than is the case for male prisoners. Some 31 per cent of the female prison population are from racial minorities, compared with 24 per cent of the male prison population. In addition to the problems usually associated with imprisonment, such women face difficulties in coping with a different culture, language problems, isolation, lack of family contact and acute anxiety about the welfare of children, who are either in care or in poverty-stricken conditions in their own country.
	A women's justice board with responsibility for commissioning provision for women offenders could set standards to ensure that provision met women prisoners' particular needs. That would include mental health services, the maintenance of family contact and culturally appropriate support for foreign nationals. A women's justice board could commission smaller units for imprisoned women, spread across the country so that women could be held nearer their families and home areas. Just as the Youth Justice Board has set itself targets to reduce the use of custody for juvenile offenders, so a women's justice board could set targets to reverse the damaging trend towards the increasing use of custody for women.
	In short, the establishment of a women's justice board could be the single most important step that we could take towards improving the treatment of women offenders. We will pay a very heavy price if we fail to deliver. There must be a clear determination to reduce the female prison population. This debate is a way forward.

The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for initiating this important debate. My noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, who is also the bishop for prisons, regrets that he is not able to be present in your Lordships' House this afternoon, but I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this timely debate.
	Your Lordships may be aware that a diocesan bishop has the privilege of paying unannounced visits to any prison in his diocese, and I for one make full use of this opportunity. I am aware that the general public, and indeed many politicians, are all too happy to ignore what might be happening behind closed doors and high walls. The mood of the popular media at present is to focus on the needs and the rights of the victims of crime. While no one can argue with that, Christians at least have a New Testament mandate to visit prisoners and to pay attention to their needs, too, and many Christians do so.
	Today's debate focuses on the needs of women in the criminal justice system. It is not generally known that our Mothers' Union is working in 17 women's prisons. For example, at Eastwood Park women's prison, MU members visit the mothers and babies unit, talking to the mothers, helping them to play with their children and taking the babies out into the community to help to establish links there. That is typical of the human connections that the MU tries to make with women who feel that they might have lost everything from their former lives, something that is particularly important when women are imprisoned many miles away from family and friends and so are getting few visitors. The Mothers' Union works hard to maintain, strengthen and enhance back-home relationships so that the network of family or friends is still there on release.
	From our visits, we are very aware that there are individual human beings behind any statistics that we or others might collect, but those statistics are deeply worrying. Women are two and a half times less likely to offend than men. When they do, they are more likely than men to commit acquisitive crimes. According to Home Office statistics, theft and handling stolen goods account for 60 per cent of female offending compared with 36 per cent for men. The second most common type is drug offences, accounting for 10 per cent of female offending compared with 20 per cent of male offenders. In general, women commit more minor offences, have shorter criminal careers and are less likely than men to commit violent offences. One-third of women in prison have no previous convictions and more than 70 per cent are in custody for the first time.
	Women make up 6 per cent of the prison population. Given that they are such a small minority, it is not surprising that their confinement in a basically male-oriented system has damaging effects. But there is evidence that women are disadvantaged at each stage in the criminal justice process: in police custody; in relating to their lawyers; and on probation, where their rehabilitative needs are not always met by mixed-sex programmes.
	In recent years, there has been a steep rise in the number of women imprisoned—a near threefold increase since 1993. This rise owes more to sentencing policy than to an increase in offending. Although there is some argument about whether women are sentenced more severely than men, a woman convicted of theft or handling in the Crown Court is twice as likely to go to prison now as in 1991, and in magistrates' courts the chance of receiving a custodial sentence has risen sevenfold.
	The majority of women offenders and prisoners have a history of suffering abuse and violence, which is interlinked with other problems. A quarter of adult women prisoners have been in care; two-thirds have a drug habit, and they tend to be more used than men to hard drugs; and 70 per cent suffer from two or more mental disorders. The consequences are seen in the incidence of self-harm and suicide in prison. In 2004, half the prisoners resuscitated following self-harm were women, and less serious self-harm is commonplace. In 2003, 30 per cent of all women prisoners had harmed themselves compared with 6 per cent of men. The number of incidents of self-harm in 2003 had doubled in two years. Fifteen per cent of suicides were by women—again, a highly disproportionate percentage.
	The impact of imprisonment on women is considerable, often involving loss of accommodation and separation from children. It is estimated that almost 18,000 children are separated from their mothers each year. Then there is the impact of increased financial problems, loss of capacity for paid work and increased stress. In one survey, 38 per cent of women prisoners questioned said that they expected to be homeless on release. These problems are aggravated by the dispersion of women across the system with 19 prisons unevenly distributed across England, and none at all in Wales, leading to some women being held at long distances from home with difficulties, as I have said, in visiting and highly disruptive effects on family life. In 2004, half of women prisoners were held more than 50 miles from their home town and a quarter were held more than 100 miles away.
	Despite much excellent work in difficult circumstances, prison healthcare and general treatment of women are often inadequate to meet their deep-seated needs. Mentally ill women are often over-medicated. A study at Holloway prison revealed that 33 per cent of women were taking medication on arrival but that this rose to more than 90 per cent during sentence. Substance abuse programmes are often over-subscribed and not followed through on release. Provision for those serving short sentences is particularly poor. Help with housing and employment in preparation for release is often lacking. The effect of those shortcomings is reflected in the rise in reconviction rates for women. In 1999, it had risen to 55 per cent within two years, compared with 40 per cent in the early 1990s.
	The minority status of women in the prison system is reflected not only in their dispersion but in the highly disruptive relocations as a short-term response to overcrowding throughout the system—which we have heard a little about—leading to both the rapid re-roling of men's prisons to admit women and the re-roling of women's prisons to meet the problem of male overcrowding. My noble friends the Bishops of Worcester and Chelmsford tell me that the re-roling is causing major traumas at present in Brockhill and Bullwood Hall prisons. The overall effect is to intensify the mismatch between women's special needs and the available facilities and expertise.
	There is a widespread recognition that the way in which women's needs are treated in the system needs to change. There is broad consensus that change needs to happen in three areas: remand and sentencing policies to take better account of women's needs; more suitable forms of punishment, making custody a genuine last resort; and better provision to prevent offending and reoffending. That is not to say that women should not be held to account and punished appropriately for particular offences, but it recognises that the prior experience, the offending profile and the practical needs of women are distinctive and need to be considered as such. Such radical innovations would require something like a women's justice board to focus on gender-specific needs, just as the Youth Justice Board has pioneered and consolidated locally based, multi-agency programmes in youth justice. I hope that the Minister in her reply will indicate that the Government are open to moving in that direction.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for securing this important debate. I strongly support his call for a strong, clear focus on the particular needs of women in prison. There is much ground to cover, so I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for reading from a script. I will seek to concentrate on the needs in prison of pregnant women, women giving birth and recovering from childbirth, and infants and toddlers if there is time. In particular, I shall ask the Minister for her response to the recent report by the Maternity Alliance, Getting it Right, on services for pregnant women, new mothers and babies in prison, and its call for a review of services.
	Before doing so, I reiterate my support for my noble friend's call for an improved strategic focus on women in custody. We have seen significant benefits accrue to children in custody through the Youth Justice Board. Louise Casey was appointed the tsar for rough sleeping, with a target of reducing rough-sleeper numbers by two-thirds within three years. She transformed services for rough sleepers. The winter prior to her arrival, I spent one evening a week in a cold weather shelter for young people. I was appalled that the most vulnerable 18 to 25 year-olds, many of them substance misusers or with mental disorders, were being cared for by the least experienced young staff. Within a year, the new service could not have been more different. I had the pleasure of serving under the new manager of the cold weather project for several months; I admired him. In particular, he initiated weekly consultation sessions with the young people in the hostel, which were immensely successful.
	I warmly welcome the review of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate's provision for children and families initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland. The so-called children's champion, Jeremy Oppenheim, director of the National Asylum Support Service and a former director of social services, has the experience and authority to make a difference. My noble friend's call for a renewal of the focus on women has my strongest support. I have seen what a difference such a concentration can make on those who are most chaotic and on where the most resource-intensive services need to be focused.
	I turn to prisons and pregnant women, new mothers, babies and toddlers, on which there is every reason to invest in the very best services. Quite apart from our concern for the welfare of those children and adults, excellent interventions at this time can help to break the cycle of criminality, anti-social behaviour and social dependency from one generation to another. Last Friday, the Cassel Hospital, a centre for the treatment of adults, adolescents and families with personality disorders, held a conference on the impact of parents' severe personality difficulties on their children's development. The Department of Health guidance on the development of services for such disorders cites the Cassel Hospital as a notable practice site. The paper, from Beate Schumacher, a psychoanalyst practising at the Cassel, highlighted that many experts considered personality disorders as being closely rooted in early parental care, particularly in care by the mother. One pattern that Ms Schumacher observed was mothers who had had empty, loveless childhoods seeking to rescue themselves by giving birth to a child. The child, to their minds, would make up for all that void. One abusive mother said:
	"I can't live without my child. All he wants is me. He is my world".
	Once such a mother is confronted with the reality that her child is incessantly demanding and will eventually grow away from her, she may often harm or neglect it.
	The charity Mind recently arranged for a mother who had suffered from maternal depression to speak to parliamentarians. She ran her own business and was educated and affluent. In her many months of depression, she found herself taking pleasure in the tears of her baby and preparing on two occasions simply to leave that child. Some 70 per cent of women sentenced to prison have two or more mental disorders and it would be welcome if the Minister could give details of the percentage of those with personality disorders. Tessa Baraden, a child psychologist based at the Anna Freud Centre who established the infant psychotherapy service at Holloway women's prison, described many of her clients as being at the severe end of personality disorders.
	To break the cycle of crime and social dependency, provision for pregnant women, new mothers and infants in prisons should be the best that we can afford. In my recent visit, it was good to see Her Majesty's Government's investment in mother and baby units at Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre—in some ways, it is an excellent facility. It is to be welcomed that child psychotherapy is being made available at Holloway prison and that it may be expanded.
	The move Her Majesty's Government made in transferring responsibility for health in the Prison Service to the National Health Service has been widely welcomed. However, the important Maternity Alliance report highlights many weaknesses. Over 600 women receive ante-natal care in prison each year, with over 100 women giving birth during their sentences. Some 80 mother and baby places across England are spread between seven prisons, but provision for pregnant prisoners is inadequate, as their needs often go unmet. There is no Prison Service order on pregnancy and there are stark variations in ante-natal services across the prison estate. As there is no Prison Service order, there is no description of a minimum-standard service that the woman should receive. Therefore there is no guidance, for instance, on how to restrain an agitated or aggressive pregnant woman. There is a lack of support available for women in mother and baby units, which is particularly worrying in light of those women's increased levels of depression and anxiety. Some do not feel fully involved in a decision about their baby's future—that is also a cause for concern—and 8 per cent of those children are taken into care.
	Aspects of Her Majesty's Government's policy towards these women are to be welcomed, but there are also a number of important shortcomings. It is vital that these women receive excellent support to bond well with their children and to prevent future crime or dependency. Therefore, I ask the Minister to reassure the House by saying that she will give active consideration to a review of services for pregnant women, new mothers and babies in the Prison Service, as the Maternity Alliance strongly recommends in its report. I look forward to her response.

Baroness Stern: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that once again we find ourselves in this House discussing the sad matter of women in the criminal justice system. A couple of months ago, there was an acutely depressing programme on BBC2 about the sick, damaged women sent to Styal prison in the north of England. The prison staff there had invented a new verb—to ligature. It means to try to hang yourself. The women in Styal were ligaturing at the rate of several every night. They also harmed themselves most violently. The film opened with a young woman cleaning up the blood of her latest cutting incident. The basin was filled with blood, as was the toilet bowl. That happens there several times every day.
	The staff emerged from the film as undertrained, under-resourced and unsung heroes and heroines. It is good news, and something that should certainly come to the attention of this House, that the prison officer leading that team—keeping those women prisoners alive throughout the day and night—Linda Horsfield, has just been announced as the overall winner of the Prison Officer of the Year award. She is also the first woman ever to win this award. We would all wish to congratulate her, while thinking what a pity it is that she has to do what she does and that we have still not found a better way in this rich country of dealing with the most poverty-stricken and despairing women that our society produces.
	Perhaps a recent case of a woman sent to prison encapsulates the sheer absurdity of our policies. Rosina Conner, a woman with seven children and heavily pregnant with her eighth child, was sent to prison for two weeks because her 14 year-old son missed a lot of school. She came out of prison saying:
	"The majority of the people on the wing I was on were heroin addicts, which is not really where I want to be".
	Her partner, Darrell, said:
	"I was shocked by the decision of a woman judge to send her to prison. That puts me in the situation of having to look after all the kids".
	Every report written about women in prison says that they are the most vulnerable, disadvantaged and psychologically damaged members of a population that is already grossly disadvantaged. Every report written about women in prison also says that many of them should not be in prison—they need help, not punishment, as their crimes are not violent.
	I suspect that the Minister will say that these women have committed serious offences and should be in prison. Indeed, some of them have—I do not deny that. But how many, I wonder, are in the category of having been charged and convicted of a serious offence, such as a threat to kill, when on analysis that turns out to be a suicidal woman saying, "Leave me alone or I'll kill you", a mentally ill woman threatening her doctor over the phone with the words, "If you don't give me the tablets, I'll come round to thump you", or a woman charged with arson because she set fire to herself and a nearby tree?
	There were 4,409 women in prison last Friday and 4,501 a year ago, so we see a welcome, although small, reduction of 92. These 4,409 are part of a population of 77,711. They are scattered around England and Wales. Nothing different marks their path through the police station, the court, the report-writing, the sentencing process and the dispatch to prison, if that is the outcome, in a prison van. Only when they arrive at prison do they find themselves in a place designed for women, although even then they will find a system designed for men, with small modifications. I hope the Minister will tell me if I am wrong, but I think that nowhere in that process of arrest, charge, prosecution, social inquiry report-writing, sentencing and transport to prison will the accused and then convicted woman find herself being dealt with by someone specially trained to deal with the problems of women in trouble with the law—someone trained to recognise the special problems such women have and who has access to resources that could help them.
	I understand that men, women and children are put together in a prison van, separated by metal partitions, often with no toilets or seatbelts. I quote from a letter to the Guardian from the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and others, which states:
	"It is not uncommon for women to arrive after 10 at night; hungry, frightened, and having wet themselves or been sick on the way".
	If sentencing courts were very enthusiastic about finding an appropriate solution other than prison—a special centre for women, a real alternative that would address women's problems—how many could find one? Certainly the courts around Hereford and Worcester would find one—the Asha Centre. Where else would courts find one? Perhaps the Minister can advise me on that.
	How do women, who account for six out of 100 people in the prison system, fare as a minority? Because of their minority status they face the problem of being held far from home. I understand that last December the number held more than 100 miles from home was an improvement on the previous year, but it was still 17 per cent, and 23 per cent were held between 50 and 100 miles away. We have heard how women's prisons are vulnerable to sudden takeovers for male prisoners at very short notice. That suggests that either the management assumes that no good relationships have been built up and that no good work is going on, or if those things have happened they do not care, or perhaps they care and make representations to Ministers which are ignored. I would be grateful to know if the appropriation last month of two women's prisons for men has altered the figures on distance from home.
	The minority status of women also seems to push concerns about them down the agenda. In 2002, Anne Owers inspected Styal prison. She said that the way drug-using women were being dealt with was appalling and dangerous and that there should be a detoxification programme. In 2004, two years later, the detoxification programme was set up, after the sixth death of a drug-using woman. The problem cannot be shortage of money. In 2004, £16 million was found to build new prison units for children—for girls under 18. The Minister is a very distinguished lawyer. I know the Government are committed to anti-discrimination and to equality for women. I would appreciate her honest assessment on how far many aspects of the way in which women are treated in the criminal justice system represents unlawful discrimination, and how much will have to change for us to comply with our obligations.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for instituting this debate, and getting us to discuss the issues of vulnerable prisoners, particularly women, yet again. I shall also briefly address the right reverend Prelate, who argued that it was a Christian tradition to visit prisoners. All the world's faiths have a tradition of looking after the vulnerable. Certainly, my own tradition believes that we should break the prisoners free from their chains, as in the Book of Isaiah.
	One reason the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is right to press for a women's justice board is that some of the worst statistics come from the women's prisons, where suicide rates, as we know, are so high, where self-harm is commonplace and the care of offenders seems wholly inadequate in many cases. From 1,811 women behind bars in 1994, only 12 years ago, the figure, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, has stated, was 4,409 last Friday. The women are vastly overcrowded. Between January and June 2004, 10 women committed suicide, compared to 14 in the whole of 2003. The rates continue to rise.
	As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said, many young offenders are parents. Facilities are inadequate both for the women who are mothers and their babies. These women are vulnerable, and the mothers are often the most vulnerable of all. Yet the Prison Service is, as a matter of course, taking babies from their mothers before they are a year old, even though most psychologists—of a variety of different opinions on almost everything else—agree that early separation can lead to long-term psychological problems for the child.
	Mental illness and drug problems are commonplace. A case I find perhaps the most moving of many I have read over the last few years—to which the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, referred in her remarks on Styal—is that of Sarah Campbell from Cheshire. She came from a conservative background and eventually ended up a heroin addict. She was sentenced to three years in Styal, a women's prison, after hassling an elderly man for drugs, who, petrified by Sarah and her friends, had a heart attack and died.
	Sarah had spent six months on remand and, to her great delight, had become drug free. But she was convicted of manslaughter and sent to Styal, where she took an overdose within hours of beginning her sentence and died three days before her 19th birthday. At court, before her sentence, the liaison duty probation officer and a duty psychiatric nurse both warned that she might harm herself. It made no difference. Her mother, formerly a quiet, well behaved civil servant, has become what people describe as an "angry, vociferous risk-taker". Her experience of her daughter's death, a child with a known history of depression and drug dependency, has made her so furious, and opened her eyes to the fact that women are treated with medieval barbarity by our prison system:
	"More and more women are being sent to prison when clearly they should be being treated for mental illness—and conditions once they reach jail are horrific . . . I have seen women who have used scouring pads and hairgrips to maim themselves".
	Women prisoners are three times as likely as their male counterparts to commit suicide, despite being only 6 per cent of the prison population. They account for about half of all incidents of self harm. Pauline Campbell, Sarah Campbell's mother, argues that women in prison are an invisible issue—not so much now, thanks to the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. Nevertheless, they do not commit violent crimes and their offences are mostly theft, drugs or unpaid bills. Two-thirds of women in prison suffer from at least one neurotic disorder, such as depression, anxiety or phobias, and more than half suffer from a personality disorder. Among the rest of the population, as the Bromley briefings tell us so powerfully, less than a fifth of women suffer from such disorders. Half of the women in prison are on some prescribed medication, such as antidepressants or antipsychotic medicines, and there is evidence, as the right reverend Prelate said, that the use of such medication increases in custody. So what is the point?
	Even more worryingly, of all the women sent to prison, some 37 per cent say they have attempted suicide at some time, and nearly two-thirds of them have a drug problem. A quarter of them were in local authority care as a child, and the picture is one of illness, depression, loneliness, and addiction: not necessarily good reasons for seeing them in prison.
	In an interview in last Saturday's Daily Telegraph, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, said:
	"In one women's prison there were six serious self-harm incidents a day. They were regularly cutting women down from ligatures. One woman was not only cutting her arms up but inserting Biros into her veins".
	That is the situation we are seeing in our prisons. What is the point of the women being there?
	Penny Mellor, a former prisoner, wrote movingly in the British Medical Journal about life in a women's prison:
	"My experience inside three very different prisons was in itself very depressing; listening to the screaming and crying all night leaves you weary, alarms going off at all hours day and night as yet another inmate tries to kill themselves makes you jumpy and renders you physically exhausted, your heart sinking and your mind praying that it won't be somebody you've grown fond of that's hurt themselves; prison officers' faces etched in stress related lines as they run to unlock a door not knowing what they will find on the other side, no wonder members of the Prison Service"—
	the article was written some time ago—
	"are looking to strike over conditions and pay".
	She continued:
	"If you weren't mentally ill when you went in, you certainly are after a very short space of time".
	Some people might argue that that is special pleading from a former prison inmate, but it appears that it is not. Women prisoners' suicide and self-harm rates are now at a record high. The introduction of the NHS as the provider of mental health services in prisons is a good thing and is much to be welcomed, but, as yet, it has not made much difference. As Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said on launching her report on what was happening about suicide, self-harm and the mentally distressed:
	"Prison is a punishment of last resort. It is cruel to lock up mentally ill women and it does lasting harm to them and their families".
	Everyone agrees that prisons are not the place for vulnerable people and that women tend to be more vulnerable in prison than men. So why do the Government not listen? Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether it is just a desire to be punitive. Do they truly believe that people have a better chance of treatment for drugs and mental illnesses inside prison? Or is it simply that it would not play well in the media to say that women should not be sent to prison unless they have committed violent offences?
	The interview with the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, published in last Saturday's Daily Telegraph—which is not necessarily known for its sympathetic views towards prisoners—reported:
	"There has, she says, been a 'huge increase' in people in prison. 'Prisons are often acting as mental hospitals and that is not what they are designed to be,' . . . 'We are reaping the harvest of closing down our large mental hospitals without providing either proper community care or sufficient secure mental health care. That partially accounts for the overcrowding'.
	"At the same time, she believes that too many drug addicts are being incarcerated when they could be treated, more cheaply and more effectively, in the community. 'I met a couple of sisters who I'd seen before in the prison. One of them said, 'I came out but got back on to drugs. I was so ill I felt I needed to get back into the safety of the prison. So I said to my sister let's go and shoplift from M&S'.
	"At one women's prison, Ms Owers says, 80 per cent of the inmates are serious drug addicts. Its prisoners have two or three times the national average level of mental illness, a third of them have tried to commit suicide and most have experienced sexual abuse.
	"We are expecting prisons to be our 'too difficult' tray, a place where we put people because we don't know what else to do with them . . . Prisons are not meant to be places where we mop up every social ill. They should be places to deal with, punish and deter serious criminals".
	I believe that the Chief Inspector of Prisons and her predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, are right. We need a women's justice board to tackle these issues. What is going on now is unacceptable in a civilised country. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort and say that the Government are changing their mind.

Lord Acton: My Lords, with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, introducing this debate, the most I can aspire to be is a Rosencrantz or Guildenstern to his Hamlet. I am delighted that I shall repeat some things said by other noble Lords because I believe that they merit saying again and again.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, stressed, my noble friend Lord Rooker in his reply to the debate on women in prison on 28 October 2004 said of a women's justice board:
	"Nevertheless, that recommendation was made and it has widespread support, but it has not been put into operation by the Home Office".—[Official Report, 28/10/04; col. 1481.]
	Today's debate can be summed up in two words: why not? This afternoon my noble friend has a golden opportunity to explain why not, or, better still, to change policy and accept a women's justice board.
	In Justice for Women: the need for reform, the report published in 2000 of the committee on women's imprisonment, chaired by Professor Dorothy Wedderburn, the central recommendation was,
	"A national women's justice board should be established immediately as a statutory commissioning body which would resemble in many respects the national Youth Justice Board".
	Wedderburn envisaged a powerful authority with its own budget and management structure to oversee the arrangements for women's imprisonment and punishment in the community; to provide the driving force to establish local centres; to develop programmes based in communities; and to ensure that prisons for women are efficiently and humanely managed to provide suitable conditions and regimes. The authority would be responsible for ensuring that programmes, whether in custody or in the community, achieve not only targets such as the number of places made available or the numbers completing particular programmes but also satisfactory settlement, integration and reduced offending.
	Six years have passed since Wedderburn reported without the establishment of such a potent authority. I ask the Minister to reflect on a few developments in the absence of a women's justice board. At the end of September 2004, female prisoners were held an average of 62 miles from their homes, with disturbing implications for their children. Distance was an aspect discussed by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern.
	As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark pointed out, in 2003, 30 per cent of women prisoners were reported to have harmed themselves compared to 6 per cent of men. Home Office research has found that 41 per cent of women in prison did not have accommodation arranged on release; only one-third of women prisoners who wanted help and advice about benefits and debt received it; and 65 per cent of women released from prison in 2002 were reconvicted within two years of release. There can be no doubt that a vigorous women's justice board would significantly improve that dreadful picture.
	The Minister is legendary for her silver tongue. May she use it now to convince her Home Office colleagues that it is essential to set up a women's justice board forthwith.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, what we have heard this afternoon from noble Lords and in particular from my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham—to whom we already owe a considerable debt of gratitude for the powerful insight into the penal system that he has brought to this House—is deeply disturbing. If your Lordships needed any further convincing of the importance of retaining a separate and fully independent inspector of prisons, what my noble friend and other noble Lords have said today must have made that case crystal clear. Of course, we shall return to that debate during the Committee stage of the Police and Justice Bill.
	The Government's recent closure of two women's prisons can only be explained by their need to house ever more male prisoners as we creep closer to complete saturation point in all prisons. As we have heard, the latest closure has left the West Midlands completely without a women's prison. As I understand it, Brockhill was a new, purpose-built prison with treatment facilities expressly designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable women. Moreover, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, the majority of its inmates' homes were within a reasonable distance, which meant that those women prisoners remained secure, in a purpose-built prison, within reasonable contact distance of their families. No longer. One wonders where they are now. I suspect—indeed, I fear—that they are scattered around the country constantly on the move. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a rather more satisfactory answer than that which I fear.
	Given the Government's recent emphasis on the need to rethink their policy to deal with women offenders, their recent actions are all the more puzzling. There have been the Styal prison suicides; the many incidents of self-harm; the fact that the number of women imprisoned has almost doubled—the figure has been repeated again—from 2,600 in 1997 to 4,409 last Friday, up from 3 per cent to 6 per cent of the prison population; and the setting up of the year-long review, under the leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Corston. All those facts have prompted the acceptance by the Government of the need for a different approach.
	Yet here we are only two days away from the end of June, the date by which we were promised an interim report from the Corston review, but the Home Office, as we have heard, apparently no longer even has a separate unit to deal with women offenders. So it seems quite clear that women have become the group worst hit by the prison accommodation crisis. Whether or not a women's justice board will ever be achieved, it is clearly essential that someone is there to be held accountable, and quickly.
	We all know that, although some offenders must be imprisoned, the intended rehabilitation side of prison is not working. It is only too well known that two-thirds of prisoners are currently reconvicted within two years. In 1992, that figure was half of all prisoners, which was bad enough.
	The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale—perhaps significantly the only woman so far to have become a Law Lord—put her views on women in the prison system very clearly when delivering the Longford lecture last December. Her view—confirmed by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham—is that the whole working of the prison system is predefined by exclusively male perceptions, which are nevertheless applied to women, despite important differences in their temperament, physique, make-up and lifestyle. That absolutely confirms my perception from some years ago, when I served as a member of the Parole Board.
	There are several reasons why I—and, clearly, other noble Lords—believe that the way in which women are treated should be made far more relevant to their lives and their needs. First, although the percentage that they represent is small, women are likely to be the most vulnerable members of the general prison population. They are more likely to have suffered violence and sexual abuse in their early days. In Care, concern and carpets, the Howard League reports that 50 per cent have experienced domestic violence and 33 per cent have suffered sexual assault. So, naturally, they are more in need of specialist help and treatment.
	Secondly, because women are still the main carers in the family, they have a greater importance for the family unit's survival. Indeed, many need urgent guidance in parenting skills, as well as the specialist medical help—which so many other noble Lords have mentioned—to deal with their almost inevitable psychological problems and addictions. Some 80 per cent of women prisoners suffer from diagnosable mental health problems, and 66 per cent are drug and alcohol addicts.
	The third reason is that the majority of offences committed by women are in the less serious category. Both the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, have been critical of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which they believe has increased the number of women imprisoned due to the more severe sentences that are now required for repeat, relatively minor offences, such as shoplifting, as we have heard. Women shoplifters are, apparently, twice as likely to be locked up for that offence as they were 15 years ago.
	The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, proposed in her lecture far more locally provided community sentences for women, combined with the necessary education and treatment. That would certainly have my backing. If this does happen, and if training and job experience could be included, perhaps the cycle of deprivation could at last begin to be reversed. For those women who sadly must be imprisoned, the Howard League's recommendation that a special prison adjustment unit be established in all prisons to help women prisoners to adjust to prison life, at least for their first 48 hours, is surely essential. As your Lordships know, many of the suicides mentioned took place during the first days of imprisonment. I hope that the Minister will have good news for us on this point.
	Far more education, mental health and drink and drug treatment facilities are needed to deal with women's underlying need for support. At present—this is almost unbelievable—apparently only 2 per cent of the prisons budget is spent on education and training. Yet 70 per cent of all prisoners are functioning well below acceptable literacy levels, as we know, and the mental health and drug treatment facilities are completely and disgracefully inadequate.
	Finally, we return to the need to concentrate help on vulnerable families from the earliest possible age. The Government have tried to make this a priority, and I congratulate them on that because that is where the maximum effort and resources are needed. We must give all children from disturbed and deprived backgrounds, but with particular attention paid to girls, the best possible chance to fulfil their potential and the five outcomes set out in Every Child Matters. When your Lordships think of the huge cost to the public purse of each citizen who ends up in prison, that must make every possible kind of sense.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, this has been a fascinating, moving and inspiring debate. In particular, I associate myself with the clarion call from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, for early intervention and support for families. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for giving us the opportunity to discuss these very difficult issues today.
	In some respects, women offenders should not be treated any differently from men. Before everyone jumps up and shouts at me, let me explain what I mean by "some respects". I believe that all sentences should be proportionate to the offence and have the general support of the public. All should have an element of punishment to show the disapproval of society that the person has transgressed the standards approved by society. If that element can also make retribution for the harm done, so much the better. All should have a large element of rehabilitation aimed at the prevention of future offending. All should have an element of reform to ensure that the offender becomes a more useful member of society and has a happier and more fulfilling life.
	We need to look at the causes of crime and ensure that those causes are addressed, as many offenders are victims themselves. By that, I mean people who have been failed by our society, education system and mental health services, as movingly described by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. These are people whom we have failed to protect from domestic or child violence, or abuse in their past, so they just repeat what they have learnt.
	In all those ways, male and female offenders should receive the same consideration. However, we now come to the major differences, which have been outlined by so many noble Lords today. Many more women commit their offences because they are in the power of men. The number of women in prison has more than doubled over the past 10 years, even though crime committed by women has not increased by the same amount. Most women are imprisoned for non-violent crimes. There is therefore some evidence that women are more likely to go to prison than men for the same offence—the "too difficult tray", as described by my noble friend Lady Neuberger.
	Many women commit theft or drug trafficking offences because they are poor and see it as a way to feed their children. More women than men are the principal carers of their children, so many thousands of innocent children suffer when their mothers are put in prison, often many miles away from home, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others have said. The women suffer more, too, through custodial sentences by being deprived of their families and worrying about how their families are coping without them. You only have to look at the self-harm and attempted suicide figures, as mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and others, to realise that. Here, like the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, I pay tribute to many of our prison staff, who are heroes and heroines and save women's lives every day. Therefore, custody is proportionately tougher on women than it is on men. That is a fact.
	We find ourselves drawn to non-custodial sentences for all sorts of reasons. Sentences need to be effective as well as cost-effective. In non-custodial sentences, we have a happy confluence of the two. They are more cost-effective in cash terms and in human terms, because they enable offenders to keep their family links and to avoid the self-harm that we have been hearing about. Such sentences avoid the pressures of incarceration, which affect women more. They avoid the brutalisation of prisoners and offenders learning from others how to commit crimes that they had never thought of. Best of all, they give better opportunities for the education and rehabilitation that are so essential for the prevention of reoffending and for addressing the root causes of the crime.
	What a pity that the general public seem to see community sentences as a soft option. They are not. They can contain elements of restorative justice, which can satisfy the victim but are very hard for the offender; community work, which can satisfy the community; and education and rehabilitation, which can be hard work and can correct the ways in which society has failed the offender before.
	These payback and reform punishments, as I like to call them, should be the first option of courts, especially in respect of women in all cases except violent or serious crime. There should be a presumption that the offender will not go to prison, but will pay her debt to society in other ways. That is why we need a women's justice board to take a really hard look at how we treat women offenders. However, we also need it in order to look at how well served women are by the criminal justice system, since many women feel totally failed by it—the "justice gap", as my noble friend Lord Dholakia called it.
	The very poor rate of conviction for rape is much discussed at the moment. Many women feel that they are not getting justice. Most complainants who get that far leave court looking glazed and emotionally destroyed, because the man whom they believe to have violated them in the most appalling way has been acquitted. They feel as though they have not been believed and that their motives in making the complaint have been questioned. Many more women either never make a complaint or pull out at an early stage when they realise what they are going to have to go through in the court. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of anger to go through with a complaint of rape.
	The conviction figures are appalling, at what I think is only 5.3 per cent compared with the 80 per cent conviction rate for other serious crimes. Why is that? I think that it is because, unless it is a stranger rape, which can easily be resolved by DNA evidence and usually results in a conviction, in acquaintance rape cases the issue is not who did it but whether there was consent. The issue of consent usually has no witnesses to give corroborative evidence. It is a matter between the two of them: her word against his. This may sound straightforward, but it is not, and a whole lot of other matters cloud the issue of culpability which are very difficult for juries. Was he drunk? Was she drunk? Was she capable of giving real consent, and should he have taken it into account if she was not? Was she asleep? What should a man assume from the way a woman behaves or dresses? That is one of the trickiest questions.
	In today's raunch society, some women have become their own worst enemies. What is more, they have sold out to men's values, a thing that my feminist sisters and I fought against in the 1960s. Having achieved the freedom to dress and behave as we wish, some of our gender are using that freedom to behave like men and are acting in accordance with male values, presumably in a desire to become one of the lads and be accepted by men. But most men prefer women to behave like women and would rather keep their laddish behaviour to themselves. Women need to understand that some kinds of behaviour feed men's worst prejudices about women, and they need to understand the effect of their behaviour on the men around them. In the full understanding of that, they will be able to make their decisions about how to behave in a free society. To address this problem, we need to look at what we do years before a rape ever takes places and reaches the doors of the court.
	All this brings me to a very serious matter that is about to come before noble Lords in the Education and Inspections Bill. In the current climate, I cannot understand the Government's resistance to ensuring that every child has personal, social and health education at school They can learn all about the mechanics of sex in their science lessons, but only in PSHE will they have a chance to discuss issues such as personal relationships and the importance of men and women respecting and understanding each other. Unless we give our young people these opportunities, boys will think that girls mean yes when they say no, which indicates a lack of respect. Girls will think that boys will not want them unless they agree to sex, which is usually wrong. Both will underestimate the danger that they put themselves in when they get drunk. These are difficult and delicate issues where freedom, liberty and equality of the sexes need to be debated alongside the facts about what can happen to young women in this dangerous world.
	In today's society, it is vital that young people have the opportunity to explore the issues that affect their health and safety as well as their future happiness. A women's justice board could look into these issues as well as into offending and sentencing and women's participation as professionals in the criminal justice system.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, after the eloquent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, it is clear that I must reassess the role of my gender. I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for initiating this debate. The House is fortunate to have among its Members just about the most informed and influential of authorities in the country on the subject of prisons. It would be unfair to describe his speech as a wake-up call to the Government, for I am aware of the efforts made by Ministers to address this desperate problem; perhaps we can say that it is the snooze button making itself known.
	The statistics regarding women prisoners speak for themselves and have been referred to by many noble Lords. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of women being incarcerated: a rise of 126 per cent between 1992 and 2002 compared with only 52 per cent for men, and so on.
	This derives from the increasing tendency of courts to remand women in custody. The fact that women offenders commit fewer serious crimes and have shorter criminal careers than men is also important. Many are small players in the drugs train, often simply acting as mules. In turn, that possibly partly explains the startling rise in foreign nationals in custody, of whom about half who are convicted for drug offences are Jamaican.
	The Fawcett Society points out that on the whole women receive lesser sentences than men. However, while a custodial sentence of even one year is not enough to give a woman some form of corrective training, it is quite long enough to break up a family unit. Then there is the obvious extra strain imposed by women prisoners on family life, particularly children. I believe that female prisoners across the country have an average of between two and 2.5 children. The chilling statistic from the Prison Reform Trust is that 17,000 children are separated each year from their mothers by imprisonment, and that 66 per cent of female prisoners are mothers. There is also the risk to which these children are exposed—often separated from their mothers under traumatic circumstances—of social exclusion, and of the children themselves becoming offenders in the future.
	Many noble Lords have spoken eloquently on the problems of suicide and self-harm. They are much greater for women than for men and significantly greater in local prisons than in training prisons.
	Then there is the factor of unintended consequences. Because there are fewer women's prisons than men's prisons, they are unevenly distributed around the country—we have heard that there are none in Wales—and the chances of women being held remote from their families is that much greater. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark reminded us, half of female prisoners are held more than 50 miles from their home town, and a quarter are held more than 100 miles away.
	The subject of churning often features in these debates; it appears to be an intractable feature of the prison system, whereby convicted prisoners have to be transferred to make way for remand prisoners, who have to be kept near their court of appearance. This, again, is a particularly acute problem for women prisoners, with the additional complication of families. I would welcome the Minister's reassurance that this churning of women prisoners in particular is being reduced.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, reminded us of the transportation of females between prisons. Why are there no seat belts in those vehicles? It is because the authorities consider that it is probably better to have women shaken around during transportation, although in some cases they may be heavily pregnant, rather than expose them to the risk of a ligature—that awful word—if a seat belt is provided?
	The case of the six women left behind in Durham prison after the transition to an all-male establishment has passed into folklore among people concerned with the welfare of women in prison. They were largely forgotten. There was a scathing report by the chief inspector following a visit in June 2006. Juliet Lyon of the Prison Reform Trust visited the six women in October 2004, and her account states:
	"Last October, during a PRT visit to Durham prison, I met a woman prisoner covered in open cuts and scars lying on a mattress on her cell floor littered with blood-stained bedding and clothing. From outside the cell door also surrounded by blood-stained material, a male officer was doing his best to talk to and comfort her. The then Governor stated that this woman had been waiting for some time for a transfer to a secure hospital".
	My only comment is that this was nearly two years ago, and we should give the authorities in Durham the benefit of the doubt that things have improved.
	On 26 May, Cathy Stancer of Women in Prison, Juliet Lyon of the Prison Reform Trust and Deborah Coles of Inquest wrote to Dr John Reid, drawing his attention to the distance from home of many women prisoners. They made the simple and sensible suggestion that in response to the strain on accommodation of additional women prisoners and the re-roling of women's prisons to male prisons, it would be a much more effective use of resources to divert women who pose no threat to public safety to specialist drug, alcohol and mental health services, and give them the focused support they need to stop them reoffending. I would welcome a comment on that letter.
	This debate is about the creation of a women's justice board. The scene was set by the publication of the Wedderburn report, a seminal document, but that was published six years ago. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, then the Lord Chief Justice, said it all in the following year:
	"There should be a board responsible for women in the criminal justice system. Its responsibilities in relation to women should be similar to the Youth Justice Board. It should regard its primary responsibility to be to contain the growth of the women prison population".
	The Youth Justice Board has indeed been a success, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others have reminded us.
	The Police and Justice Bill is passing through your Lordships' House as we speak. The whole of the inspectorate system is under review. There surely cannot be a better time to address with urgency the creation of a women's justice board. Many of the factors underlying women's offending such as education, employment, health, childcare and housing, lie beyond the control mechanism of the criminal justice system and the Home Office. The case has surely been made for a multi-agency approach to deal with women's offending. The Youth Justice Board does indeed straddle different agencies and has proved itself a successful body. Let this be a template for a women's justice board.
	Such a board must have a wide remit. It must for instance encompass the awful problems often faced by women on release from prison. Prisoners often speak of the curiously strange world they find themselves in even after short sentences. Add to that the trauma largely peculiar to women prisoners. The Prison Reform Trust estimates that one-third of women in prison will find that they have lost their homes and possibly their possessions, as a result of incarceration. The Fawcett Society says:
	"On release, women find themselves in a catch-22 situation; they have problems getting their children back if they do not have a home, but have problems in getting a home if they are not caring for their children".
	They just cannot win.
	The marginalisation of women prisoners has been with us for years. Because they form only 6 per cent of the prison population, it easy to see how their special needs have tended to be ignored, and, to be fair, it did not start with this Government.
	I have one last thought. I once again urge the Minister to look overseas at other countries' practices. For this I am indebted to the Fawcett Society. In Russia, for example, mothers of children under the age of 14 who are convicted of all but the most serious offences are routinely given suspended sentences. In Germany, women are housed under curfew with their children in units attached to prisons but located outside the gates.
	To return to the subject of this debate, something must surely be done. I fear that I am not alone in expressing my disappointment at the Minister's reply on 1 February that the Government have no plans to act on the three proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and his successor Anne Owers, all focusing on the creation of a women's justice board. Against that background, I once again thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for setting the tone for this outstandingly well informed debate. I look forward with anticipation to what the Minister has to tell us. In particular, can she give us any encouragement on the creation of a new women's justice board to fulfil the eloquent forecast of her noble friend Lord Rooker with which this debate started, along with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I add my voice to those who have thanked the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for giving us the opportunity to debate an extremely interesting subject. I also commend my noble friend Lord Rooker for departing the moment that this debate started.
	There is much with which we all agree. The background and the coalescence between the victim and the offender were graphically outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, echoing something started by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. Therefore, I start with those issues with which we all agree.
	Prison is for serious, violent, dangerous and persistent offenders and should be the last resort. That is the statement made by the Government and I know from listening to the various contributions throughout the House that there is agreement on that. I assume that the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, agrees because I have never heard him dissent from it.
	The importance of understanding the innate vulnerability of some of the women in our estate has to be underlined. When we say that we have to care for victims, we have to appreciate, as many noble Lords have outlined, that many of the women in our estate were in the first instance victims whose needs were not adequately addressed. I highlight the issue that has been raised by a number of noble Lords, that of domestic violence and sexual assault. Our figures indicate that between 46 and 56 per cent of the women prison population have been affected by those two things. However, when I visited Holloway prison last week, the figure given to me by the governor about women in his estate was that 76 per cent had been affected by domestic violence and sexual assault. They were at one stage victims—women who used, by way of some form of panacea, drink or drugs, became mentally ill or resorted to prostitution or acquisitive crime as a way of providing a salve for the pain that was within them.
	But we must also appreciate, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, and others accept, that some women in our prison estate have created and committed very serious offences indeed. It is alarming, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, highlighted, that some women have sought to emulate some of the more aberrant behaviour of men in relation to gang culture, violence and abuse of alcohol, which has materially changed the way in which they have offended and the seriousness of those offences. As a result, we all find it depressing that over the past 10 years the number of women sentenced to determinate sentences of four years or more has increased the most—by 222 per cent to 1,322. Violence against the person accounted for 17 per cent over the past 10 years, so among the group of women for whom we care there are regrettably some very seriously dangerous and violent people. We all must acknowledge that there is an element of risk which has to be addressed.
	The original call for a women's justice board, similar to the Youth Justice Board, was made in a recommendation by the Prison Reform Trust, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, indicated. Dorothy Wedderburn's report of 2000 clearly set that out. It has been repeated variously, including by my noble friend Lord Acton—or should I say Lord Guildenstern.

Lord Acton: Lord Rosencrantz.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thought that my noble friend preferred to be Guildenstern, but I am quite happy if he wants to rename himself Rosencrantz.
	The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, Juliet Lyon and Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, among many, have raised this issue. Concern was focused on the need to prioritise women offenders' needs with effective management and provision of adequate resources. We, too, recognise and share the concern that the distinct needs of women in the criminal justice system must be met, but there are no current plans to create a women's justice board.
	I was asked to say why. There is currently no separate framework in law for women as there is for young offenders. We have a different structure. Attempting to go down that route could risk marginalising women further, when what is needed is to mainstream the provision that we give women and ensure that under the national offender management structure sufficient priority is given to service provision for, and management of, women offenders.
	I shall touch on what unites women and men. There are two things we have to do if we are to change dramatically and significantly the way we deal with offenders. The first is to make an accurate risk assessment: what is the danger that they pose? The second is to do an accurate needs-based assessment. If we are going to stop the revolving door, we really have to better understand what we need to do with and for those offenders. If we do not assist them to break the cycle, those offenders will keep coming back. When we then look at the needs of women, we have to be clear that those needs differ from those of men.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, among others, said, the system was created and developed by men, for men. It does not necessarily respond in a way that meets the needs of women easily. As policy and programmes evolve, we have to take into account those sometimes quite stark differences.
	I hope noble Lords will agree that the seven pathways out of crime we have identified are very similar for men and women. Whether it is work, education, housing or health, those issues impinge significantly and almost equally on men and women, save for one element: for men, employment is the big factor that cuts into whether they will return to offending, while for women it is accommodation, because they have to care for children and others. We are committed to making fast and significant progress in developing our strategy.
	The strategic policy direction of the management of women offenders flows from the central National Offender Management Service through the framework of the women's offending reduction programme, whose intent is to ensure that policies and practices are appropriate to meet the needs of women, and to encourage joint working across departments and agencies to tackle the range of factors that impact on why women offend. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, says that we have to work together; that this is not just a criminal justice issue. I absolutely agree with her. The issues of education and health are important.
	I want us, however, to be accurate, and to acknowledge the marked changes that have been made by making the DfES responsible for education in the community and in prison. Making the Department of Health responsible for the health of women both in prison and outside is also a marked change, if we are to have end-to-end offender management and move smoothly from one to the other. We allocated £9.15 million of funding to the Together Women programme in March 2005. This is the first time that specific funding has been made available per gender, as opposed to any other criterion.
	I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, that the whole process we are looking at is predicated on the approach adopted by the Asha Centre programme. That is what we are trying to replicate: a holistic response. I wish to see a development of that inclusive, multi-agency approach right across the country. The geographical line management of women prisoners, but with central oversight of operational policy development and implementation, has led to improvements in performance and gender-specific interventions. That has been very hard-won and difficult to achieve.
	There is a policy group directly responsible for women's policy, headed up by Hazel Banks, which is aggressively looking at how we can make best use of this money. Within NOMS we are developing a national specification for women offenders in the community and in custody, which will ensure a central framework for the commissioning and delivery of appropriate provision for women. Gender-specific performance-monitoring arrangements will enable us to monitor and evaluate provision in a way that we could not do before. We are not complacent—more needs to be done. That is why I have asked my noble friend Lady Corston to undertake a review of vulnerable women to ensure that we are doing everything possible for women with particular vulnerabilities who come into contact with the criminal justice system. I look forward to receiving her report at the end of December 2006. I am determined that we should do better and leave no stone unturned in addressing the needs of women.
	The women's offending reduction programme, launched in March 2004, aims to improve community interventions and services to ensure they are appropriate for women, and to reduce use of custody. It is a real step forward. The first annual review of progress was produced in September 2005. I hope that many noble Lords will have seen it.
	I think that we are all agreed on the difficulties which we face. I turn to some of the specific issues that have been raised. I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, that I do not have a snooze button. I wish that sleep would occasionally come my way to make a snooze button possible. I hope that I shall satisfy noble Lords that we have made many changes. All women's prisons now have some form of first-night support for women newly entering custody. However, we recognise that the level and type of services in prisons differ. The Prison Service is working hard to improve those services across the board.
	Noble Lords have rightly asked what has happened to re-roling. One has to understand the role that Brockhill plays. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will be aware of that. Unsentenced women are most likely to be impacted by the change of function at Brockhill, as once women are sentenced they are all transferred out of Brockhill to other prisons to create spaces for newly remanded women. NOMS is finalising the revised court catchment areas arising from the Brockhill change of function. The analysis of the impact on the closeness of home will follow from that. I have insisted—I am assured that this has been done—that there has to be an assessment of each woman's needs before she is moved, that there has to be a discussion with each woman, and then that the most appropriate placement is found for her. That process will be rigorously adhered to so that we can ensure that the needs of each woman in the prison estate are dealt with appropriately.
	Noble Lords know of the pressure on the prison estate. We have an oversupply of places in the women's estate and a tension in the male estate. That is the reality. Therefore, if we are to deliver parity of treatment and fairness to all our prisoners, it is incumbent on us to try to ensure that each prisoner has the best possible care that the system can devise. I do not hesitate to tell your Lordships that those issues are always difficult and complex, but that the needs of each person are looked at very fully indeed.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, rightly raised concerns about the care that is given to pregnant women and the way in which we are dealing with that. The New Beginnings parenting courses, run by the Anna Freud Centre, are being piloted at three prisons and will be evaluated for their effectiveness in improving women's parenting skills. The pregnancy services should comply with the NHS guidelines. Therefore, a Prison Service order would not be appropriate, but I understand why the noble Earl raised the point, because at the time when it was suggested the NHS was not fully responsible for those services, and that would have been appropriate. Now we expect all women in prison to receive the same quality of care that they would receive from the NHS outside prison.
	I know, too, that there has been concern about the difficulty in transferring men and women. I assure the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that there is separation between young people and men and women, and all appropriate steps are taken. On occasion, it is right because of the geographical positioning of the transfer that men and women are taken together, but children and young people are always taken separately, and appropriate steps are taken to make sure that is securely and properly done.
	The right reverend Prelate rightly raised the issue of how others can contribute to the care that we give to those in prison. I commend, as he did, the work done by the Mothers' Union and by the chaplaincies of all faiths in prisons to drive that forward. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, described the conditions in prisons as medieval and barbaric. That is an unjust assessment.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, I assure the noble Baroness that I was quoting Pauline Campbell; I was not saying it myself. That was her view after the death of her daughter.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I understand the pain and difficulty that Pauline Campbell may be in, so I will rephrase that and say that it is not a just assessment of the conditions in prisons.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, rightly emphasised the issue of children and Every Child Matters, and I strongly agree with her. The work that we are doing in this area is not simply dependent on what we are doing in prisons; it is what we are doing on education, with Every Child Matters and Sure Start. All those things will contribute to an improvement of the way that we respond.
	What we are doing to support women who are domestic violence victims is immensely important. The programmes of specialist domestic violence courts now have tremendous results, and there has been a clear improvement in the number of women who start cases and are able to go right the way through. There is an improvement in the number of women who are now able to get orders that keep them protected. In the areas where specialist domestic violence courts operate, we do not have people coming back. The numbers of women who are killed by their partners or ex-partners are going down. Before we started specialist domestic violence courts, 120 women died every year, which is two to three women a week. Now it has gone down to 100, and it looks as if it is going lower.
	The number of incidents of domestic violence may also be reducing although, with the grace of God, the numbers who have the courage to report it are going up. These are very positive things. There is much work to do, and I will obviously listen and look very carefully at the report that my noble friend Lady Corston will be issuing in December. This issue is not closed. I know from those who sit behind me, not least my noble friend Lord Acton, that it will not be closed until he and a number of other noble Lords get their way.

Lord Acton: My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend should refer to me again and not call me either Guildenstern or Rosencrantz; it is a marvellous sensation. Is it within the terms of reference of my noble friend Lady Corston to recommend a women's justice board?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we have not limited the nature of the recommendations that the noble Baroness can make. She has been tasked to look at the needs of vulnerable women who have very complex needs, to look at the system, and then to report. I have not restricted the areas on which she may feel it is pertinent to report.

Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for replying with her habitual courtesy and care and for covering so many issues raised this afternoon. I was particularly delighted with her last remark—that this issue is not closed. I also thank all noble Lords who have made such marvellous contributions to the debate, and for the depth of those contributions, which must have taken considerable time to prepare. I am certain that when people read this debate and see the evidence there, they will see that considerable knowledge already exists about the needs and the vulnerabilities of this neglected group of offenders.
	I am very glad to hear that the issue is not closed. I am slightly bemused to hear that we cannot have a champion for women in the criminal justice system because there is not a separate framework for women in law. I believe that it is possible in any organisation to have a champion of people who has responsibility and accountability for looking after their affairs. Although I am delighted to hear that there is a policy group in NOMS, I know from experience that policy groups do not take action. Action is what we need to take.
	I am glad that so many noble Lords have mentioned the staff in the Prison Service and the probation service and the problems that they face. I commend in particular the determined efforts of the current director general, Phil Wheatley, in leading his service in enormously difficult times, faced as he is with the imminent absolute lock-out of having all his places occupied.
	I am sure that noble Lords will agree that we have had a vastly interesting and well informed debate. I hope that the Minister will take all of the contributions in the spirit in which they were meant. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
	First, I should like to pay tribute to my right honourable friend, Tom Clarke, who piloted the Bill with a winning combination of determination and idealism through the other place, in a manner which showed why he is held in such great respect on all sides. I also welcome support for the Bill from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, who regrets that he cannot attend the debate at this late hour, and likewise from the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey. She has asked me to say why she supports the Bill, which I shall turn to later. I very much look forward to the maiden speeches of my noble friend Lady Quin and the noble Lord, Lord Cotter.
	Before very briefly outlining the Bill, I want to say that it comes to us in a much more worked-over form than some. Not only have many of the most prominent NGOs taken part in its drafting; it is the product of support, indeed enthusiasm, from all parties. It has already received a lot of attention to detail and coverage. Your Lordships will wish to be aware of the conscientiousness of the participants in the Committee stage in the other place, and of the flexibility of Ministers.
	There is a reason beyond enthusiasm for the subject in this. It is that a Private Member's Bill can become an Act only if its life here as a Bill is short, neat and tidy. If it is not regarded as complete after coming to your Lordships' House, it will fall to the axe of the timetables for government legislation. I am reassured by all parties in your Lordships' House that this fledgling Bill will be able to fly as it did from the other place. But we shall need to keep the process short.
	The Bill's purpose is simple. It is to see that the promises of this Government made at Gleneagles, one year ago next week, and any made by future Governments, are kept. Its essence is simple: accountability. Accountability in delivering effectively the aid which thousands upon thousands of people marched for to Make Poverty History. Accountability to that public, through Parliament.
	Thus, the first provision of the Bill is for an annual report by the Secretary of State to Parliament. The report must include the year's progress towards the goal of 0.7 per cent of gross national income for official development assistance, and this is even explicit in the Long Title of the Bill. It must include general progress towards achieving millennium development goals 1 to 7 through UK assistance and the multilateral aid to which the UK contributes; the specific effectiveness of UK bilateral aid in no fewer than 20 countries—a number reached after successful challenge by NGOs and by honourable friends of Members opposite—with an undertaking that for the duration of this Parliament the number will be taken to cover the 25 countries in DfID's public service agreement; and, finally, progress in promoting untied aid.
	As well as qualitative assessments, the report must also provide the statistical data set out in the schedule—actual sums of aid in various categories, sums of debt relieved, the total percentage of gross national income spent on official development assistance, and the percentage given to low-income countries. Bilateral aid is to be broken down by region, country and sector. Humanitarian assistance must also be detailed—another point successfully made in Committee in the other place. Bilateral official development assistance must be broken down by country, and the imputed UK share of multilateral official development assistance by country must also be given.
	And it is not only DfID's own activity which the Secretary of State must report on. He or she must also include a section on the effects of the policies and programmes of other government departments on the promotion of sustainable development and the reduction of poverty in developing countries, especially as this relates to MDG 8. This must specifically include an account of progress towards an open trading system which,
	"expands trading opportunities for low income countries",
	the development of an open, rule-based, non-discriminatory financial system and the enhancement of debt relief for low-income countries.
	Very importantly, this section must also cover what other departments do to promote transparency in both the provision of aid and the use made of aid, as well as measures to manage and monitor the use of aid, preventing corruption and ensuring that targets are clear.
	So, for recipients the Bill will give the power to see in advance what aid flows come from the UK so they can plan ahead. And it will set an example of good governance in our own disbursement of aid, which will also enable parliamentarians in receiving countries to hold their own governments to account. They will know how much has been received and for what purpose, just as here the Bill will sharpen the responsibility of Members of both Houses to chase progress towards the millennium development goals.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, has asked me to give her three main reasons for her "enthusiastic support for the Bill". She says:
	"First, there is insufficient informed knowledge in our Parliament, let alone among our nation as a whole, about the reality of the world in which we live, and where often by dedicated but limited co-operation with the Government or NGO's in a developing country the United Kingdom can make a huge improvement for the people of that country. Second, there is a need for precise information to assist the debate. Third, it is important that the co-ordination of assistance overseas is clarified by spelling out the amounts and type of aid provided through the many multilateral organisations. The Bill provides well for this to be done".
	I am extremely grateful to her.
	All this represents a statutory codification which goes beyond current practice and which gives Parliament a much stronger role in ensuring that the considerable sums the UK taxpayer gives really make a difference. I commend the Bill to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Whitaker.)

Lord Chidgey: My Lords, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, in congratulating Tom Clarke on his tireless work inside and outside Parliament to advance the transparency and accountability that we so desperately need in international development. I also join her in welcoming our two newly ennobled colleagues who are to break their duck, so to speak, tonight. I particularly welcome my noble friend Lord Cotter, who has been a colleague and a friend in the other place for many years. I know he will make a valuable contribution to our proceedings in this Chamber.
	As Tom Clarke emphasises, at the heart of his Bill is an annual report to Parliament on progress in aid and millennium development goals, on accountancy, on accountability and on transparency. I welcome the Bill as a tool—a weapon—to address the woes of unfortunate failures in international development aid policy in past years. However, it is only one tool in the toolbox, only one weapon in the armoury. The Make Poverty History campaign last year reminded us of the challenge facing the developed world in empowering poor countries to reach the development goals. The challenge was starkly underlined in Africa.
	I declare my usual interest as a vice-chairman of the Africa All-Party Parliamentary Group and vice-chairman of a number of other African country groups. As the Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, said, nearly half the population of sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than a dollar a day. Some 40 million children are not at school and, of those who are at school, far too often the girls do not complete their education. They are taken out of school at the end of the primary phase because culturally their place is considered to be at home, rather than being educated. Some 250 million Africans do not have access to safe water or to sanitation and each year, millions die from HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and water-borne diseases.
	Of the G8 commitments to Africa made at Gleneagles last year, very little—perhaps inevitably—has so far been delivered on the ground. Real change will, I think, take decades. I believe that it would be a mistake to concentrate entirely on aid to lift the grinding poverty that the continent has suffered. Despite decades in which its resources have been ravaged, Africa remains a rich continent. The key to bringing millions of citizens in Africa out of poverty and out of despair is not simply to rely on aid, but to aid Africa in developing its own economy and to develop its trade between African countries as well as with the industrialised world.
	A critical aspect of taking the citizens of Africa out of poverty is to break the stranglehold of corruption: corruption in their governments, corruption in their financial and commercial institutions and corruption in their trading partners, including here in the United Kingdom. That is why we should welcome this reporting and transparency Bill, as a step towards enshrining accountability and the crime of corruption in our own laws.
	As I said before, to a degree the Bill provides a tool to help to tackle corruption, but other more powerful legislative tools are coming down the track to complement this Bill once Parliament has had the opportunity to deliberate them. Some noble Lords may recall that in a debate in this Chamber on 19 June, on the Africa All-Party Group's report on corruption, The Other Side of the Coin, I drew attention to the need for a corruption Bill to address the shortcomings in United Kingdom legislation in the battle against corruption. This Bill cannot address those shortcomings, and that is not its fault. It is a short Bill, which will hopefully have a rapid passage through this House. By definition, it cannot address the wider issues.
	I am grateful that, within three days of that debate, the Government published their response to the recommendations made in that report. In particular, I welcome the announcement of the appointment of the Secretary of State for International Development as an anti-corruption champion. I look forward to seeing the gentleman in that role. I am sure it is a capable fit.
	I also welcome the fact that the Government have agreed to find funding for a new international corruption task force. It is all to the good. But we still need progress with legislation such as a corruption Bill; for example, that prepared by a well known NGO, Transparency International, in draft form. It has taken a lead by helping with the preparation of a ten-minute rule Bill introduced in another place. It is ready, as noble colleagues and the Minister will know, to be presented as a Private Member's Bill in this House should the need arise.
	The positive elements of the Government's response to the Africa group's report are welcomed. But it remains to be seen whether it will lead to the degree of effort required to prosecute corruption legislation in its entirely. For example, the United Kingdom is one of 14 parties to the OECD anti-bribery convention, under which not a single prosecution for foreign bribery has been made in recent years. That is surprising, given the United Kingdom's substantial involvement in sectors and countries with a high risk of corruption. It is not enough for the Government to say that it remains committed to introducing a corruption Bill in due course.
	Earlier this year, DfID took the initiative of consulting widely on its new White Paper on development. In response, TI has submitted a comprehensive paper, setting out how anti-corruption measures could improve the effectiveness of our development policy and assistance. The Bill is, in many ways, a scene-setter for an approach supported by the TI submission and many others. The draft corruption Bill sets out the actions that can be taken in legislative form.
	Finally, while I welcome Tom Clarke's Bill and genuinely wish it speedy progress into law, I urge the House to note and consider that much more remains to be done before we have a comprehensive box of tools to tackle corruption in development aid and other funding.

Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, I was delighted to hear my noble friend Lady Whitaker so ably detailing the Bill's provisions and strongly commending this humane and long-overdue measure to your Lordships' House. She did so with compelling concern, commitment and charm. Her speech alone justifies a Second Reading for the Bill. With my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, I very much look forward to the maiden speeches in the debate of my noble friend Lady Quin, and the noble Lord, Lord Cotter.
	Like my noble friend Lady Whitaker, I congratulate and pay tribute today to my right honourable friend Tom Clarke on steering the Bill through the House of Commons with such skill and success. Speaking as a serial legislator—both as a private Member and a Minister—I hold his achievement in admiration. By all the tests of the good MP, he is an outstanding parliamentarian. For me this is a deeply evocative moment. It calls to mind the warm all-party support he received in enacting his Private Member's Bill that became the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986. My roles then were as Tom's co-sponsor of his Bill, and secondly, to lead for Her Majesty's Opposition at all stages of its progress through the House of Commons. I described him at that time as a young parliamentarian of high promise. Now he is one of even higher performance.
	Very few parliamentarians have succeeded in taking two Private Members' Bills—and in different policy areas—to the statute book. I believe Tom Clarke will soon become one and this measure, like Tom himself, deserves well of this House. One would not have had to out-prophesy the prophet Isaiah to predict—after his success in the ballot for Private Members' Bills for the current parliamentary Session—that Tom's chosen measure would again be one to relieve and reduce preventable human suffering.
	At Report in another place on 16 June, Tom wisely reflected that Private Members' Bills are defeated not only by determined opponents but often also,
	"by their friends and supporters".
	He advised his supporters to,
	"stick to the brevity to which I have committed myself".—[Official Report, Commons, 16/6/06; col. 1008.]
	Even more important today is the fact that there is now no parliamentary time-allocation left for debating further amendments to this Bill in the House of Commons. Thus amending it here would end any realistic prospect of it becoming law. That is the backcloth against which this debate is taking place.
	In her speech, my noble friend Lady Whitaker emphasised the Bill's importance in making executive government more accountable. Unquestionably also its enactment will help parliamentarians more effectively to discharge their duty—some would say sovereign duty—to subject policy-making in this deeply sensitive and crucially important field to much more detailed scrutiny than is possible today.
	Who among us here can have any doubt that the combined wisdom of this House in scrutinising the annual report the Bill requires will improve policy-making on issues such as aid, debt and trade; or have any doubt that more accountability will benefit those most in need provided, of course, that it is not just about listening and responding to well-heeled lobbyists but hearing the cries of those now unheard?
	Improved accountability, transparency and scrutiny can and must be about ensuring that most help from the resources we provide reaches those most in need. That this is not happening now was graphically illustrated by UNICEF's classic report The State of the World's Children 1994 which stated:
	"When so much could be done for so many and at so little cost, then one central, shameful fact becomes unavoidable: the reason that these problems are not being overcome is not because the task is too large or too difficult or too expensive. It is that the job is not being given sufficient priority because those most severely affected are almost exclusively the poorest and least politically influential people on earth".
	Today that "shameful fact" is well exemplified by the incidence of blindness across the world. Four out of five blind people live in the third world and four out of five of them are preventably blind. Yet as that inspired crusader against avoidable disabilities, my friend the late and still widely mourned Sir John Wilson, so clearly demonstrated, the cost of saving people in the third world from preventable blindness has been falling as dramatically as the incidence of preventable blindness in many of the poorest countries has increased.
	Dr Samuel Johnson wrote:
	"How small of all that human hearts endure, That part that Lords and Kings can cure".
	By hastening Royal Assent to this Bill—the Tom Clarke Bill—this House can refute that cynical assessment of what parliamentarians acting together can achieve in righting the wrongs endured by the weak and vulnerable.
	It will not be the first refutation of Dr Johnson's cynicism—take the case of Wilberforce and human slavery—but never was it more necessary than it is now to wield all the influence we have to ensure that right is done in transforming endurance into lives worth living for the poor, vulnerable and afflicted people this Bill can help.
	We were reminded by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister only this week that too few aid pledges are made for real and too many for show. This Bill is about being real and I, too, commend it unreservedly to the House.

Baroness Quin: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak for the first time in this House on a Bill that relates to two of the greatest challenges facing us—tackling world poverty and doing so in a way that can be environmentally sustainable. I concur wholeheartedly with the comments made by my noble friend Lady Whitaker in presenting the Bill to us today.
	I am also very glad that the Minister participating in this debate will be my noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon. She and I go back quite a long way, having both worked together within the Labour group of MEPs in the years immediately after direct elections in 1979. Indeed, I sometimes reflect that she and I could write an entertaining memoir of those days, although I hope and expect that she is fully occupied with her ministerial duties and therefore will not be contemplating such a project in the near future.
	I come to the House having spent 18 years in another place. Some colleagues in the new intake into your Lordships' House have said to me that they think that the experience will prove most useful. I hope it will be useful, although I must say that so far I have been struck by the differences between the two Houses and the need for me as a new girl to learn the procedures in this House. I have also been struck with the ease in which I have managed to get lost in this end of a building I thought I knew well, and by the number of new rooms, corridors and staircases I have discovered in this magical Palace of Westminster. Furthermore, I have been struck by the warmth and friendliness of the reception that I have been met with, which I think is common to all new Members.
	I come here with, as we all have, views about the composition of this House. Indeed, as a Commons Member of the Joint Committee on Lords Reform set up in 2001, I probably have got more form on this issue than people think I should have. However, I have always been a strong believer in the important role of the second Chamber and the need to have a second Chamber that can prompt the primary Chamber to think again. I remember, as will many ex-Ministers, with pleasure the evidence sessions I had with committees in this House. It was "with pleasure", except for the few occasions—I hope they were few—when I turned up feeling not entirely well prepared and being reminded yet again of the expertise and collective wisdom that there is in this House, to which I would like to pay tribute.
	Like many Members who have come from another place, we are often anxious to retain our old constituency links in our choice of title. My constituency was named Gateshead East and Washington West. That title confused many of the good voters of that area, so I settled very happily for the formal title of "Quin, of Gateshead", which gives me a public association with the town and the local authority, which has done so much for its inhabitants in recent years, especially in the spectacular cultural projects with which it is now nationally associated.
	There is a link between Gateshead Council and the Bill, because Gateshead Council was one of the authorities which took a lead in the establishment of an organisation called Council Aid in the 1980s. That was not just about channelling aid to communities in developing countries; it was also about council officials sharing their administrative knowledge and expertise with their counterparts in developing countries. I know that many people in Gateshead Council who were involved in that initiative are very committed to the goals of the Bill.
	As a supporter of the governing party, I am delighted publicly to be able to applaud the Government's record on aid and development from the establishment of DfID in 1997; through the work of its two dynamic Secretaries of State; the increased level of aid; the commitment to the 0.7 per cent target; and to the pioneering work on debt relief and the initiatives taken within the G8 and the European Union. As my noble friend Lord Morris has just mentioned, the Prime Minister this week set up the Africa Progress Panel, which we all hope will have every success in its work in the coming months.
	I am glad that the Government respond positively to this Bill, which I feel is important in a number of ways. First, it obliges the Government to report annually not just on the quantity but on the quality of their aid and to do so in an open and transparent way. It also calls for government to respond consistently and in a co-ordinated way. I was very much struck in a debate on corruption in Africa held in this House a couple of weeks ago, to which the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, referred, by the stress on the importance of having co-ordinated government policy on such issues. As those of us who have served in government know, co-ordination is a day-to-day challenge to governments, but it is vital if policies are to be effective.
	The Bill also stresses the importance of the millennium development goals, to which I believe we are all very attached: the goals of tackling world poverty, of promoting the education of women, and of doing so in an environmentally sustainable way.
	The Bill is capable of responding to public interest. There is massive public interest on this issue, as we have seen in the success of the Make Poverty History campaign and the genuine and generous public response to events such as the Asian tsunami. The public rightly want to know that the money they contribute is well spent. They also want to know that money given to government aid programmes is well spent.
	I believe that the Bill can also be a catalyst or stimulus for other groups and organisations. I hope that it will encourage European Union countries which at present do not have such a reporting mechanism at present to adopt one. I am sure that it will be welcomed by recipient countries—especially those where in the past there have been concerns about the quality of aid, including many of those mentioned in the Africa debate a couple of weeks ago, which are democratising and making their own procedures more open and accountable than they were. That is an important stimulus for them.
	It is also important as an example to non-governmental organisations, many of which are fully committed to their own accountability charters, because they know that the public who give to their organisations want to be assured that the money they give is well used.
	The Bill can be a good example to the private sector as well in its dealings with developing countries and the need to operate in a more open and transparent way than has been the case.
	Clause 6 refers to the partnership principle to which I believe the Government are committed in their relationship with developing countries in administering aid for the future. I am glad the Bill stresses that and brings it to the forefront of its composition. All in all, the clauses are very helpful and worthwhile.
	In conclusion, the Bill is an excellent example of the initiative that private Members in both Houses can take. I will certainly be very happy if, by supporting the Bill in my first contribution to this House, I can help to ensure its smooth legislative passage and to ensure that it reaches the statute book as soon as possible.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, it is a duty, but it is also a pleasure, to follow immediately after the maiden speech in this House of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and for me to welcome that excellent speech. I do so all the more cheerfully as the noble Baroness has chosen the same subject—international development—as I did for my own maiden speech here some five years ago.
	I had the pleasure of working with the noble Baroness first as a Member of the European Parliament, then when she was a Front-Bench speaker on foreign affairs in opposition, and when she became Minister for Europe while I was successive Governments' special representative for Cyprus. I hope she will not mind my saying that she was a much appreciated and most effective Minister for Europe, not least because she took the trouble to speak the languages of more than one of our EU partners.
	In Cyprus, she and I had an experience that could well end up in the Guinness Book of Records when Mr Rauf Denktash spoke for 49 minutes without giving her a chance to get in even an opening remark—not something, I am glad to say, that could happen in your Lordships' House. Anyway, her contribution to the debate will leave us with a lively expectation of her further participation in the work of this House.
	I shall speak briefly in support of the Bill, which I believe to be an admirable and necessary measure. I do so in particular to show support for it from the Cross Benches, signifying I hope that here, as in another place, this Bill enjoys the support of all parties and of those, like me, with no party allegiance. For many years, the British Government paid lip service to their commitment to the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP to be devoted to official development aid. UN conferences came and went and we continued to subscribe to the target. Meanwhile, our actual disbursement of aid moved away from the target, not towards it. This was a discreditable way of behaving, which undermined not only our own credibility and reputation but that of the United Nations.
	In more recent times, we have begun to move effectively towards achieving the target, and now the Government have committed themselves to a precise timetable for that. The Bill will underpin that commitment by obliging the Government to chart each step of the course. It will thus greatly increase the credibility of our position, and if it inspires other countries, which are also now committed to a precise timetable for achieving the 0.7 per cent, to do likewise, as I hope it will, it could have a multiplier effect and will facilitate the crucial task of monitoring the commitments, which is so essential.
	In that context, the Bill is of a piece with the very welcome announcement by the Prime Minister earlier this week of the establishment of a panel, to be chaired by Kofi Annan, to work on the follow-up to the commitments to Africa made last year. It is also of a piece with the publication next week of the report by your Lordships' own EU Select Committee on the European Union strategy for Africa, and in particular on that strategy's effective implementation. But the measure will do more than that. By linking our overall aid performance to progress towards achieving the different UN millennium development goals, in particular towards goal 8—the reduction of poverty—it should increase the pressure on receiving countries to be able to demonstrate clearly and transparently that Britain's aid really is going to support programmes in health, education and other vital objectives set out in the millennium development goals.
	The reference to preventing corruption is particularly important. Nothing undermines the general case for overseas aid more insidiously than the widespread belief that it will end up in the wrong hands and is not going to be applied effectively to the objectives identified for the grant of the aid in the first place. We need now to build up an effective alliance between the donors and the recipients to resist corruption and to convince the recipients that it is as much in their long-term interest as it is in ours to be able to demonstrate that aid is helping to achieve the millennium development goals. That measure should help to achieve that aim.
	On a purely procedural point, I would urge, along with noble Lords who have already spoken, that Members of this House do not move any amendments in Committee. The peculiarities of the procedures here and in another place would mean that any such move would be likely to result in the Bill being lost, which would be a miserable outcome. In any case, to my relatively untutored eye, the provisions of the Bill seem to be admirably clear and concise. I understand that it enjoys the enthusiastic support of the Secretary of State for International Development. I hope that we can today wish it on its way to speedy adoption.

Lord Cotter: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, on her maiden speech. I shall have to strive very hard to match the ability and fluency that she achieved a short while ago. Perhaps I may say how grateful I am for this opportunity to speak in your Lordships' House for the first time, in particular when we are talking about worldwide events. Most important, I thank enormously all concerned for the support and help that I have been given up to and after my introduction on 5 June, especially the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who is here today, for introducing me on the Floor of the House. I also thank the many noble Lords from all quarters who have made me most welcome, as well as the official staff and everyone for being so supportive.
	I should like to mention the introduction packs and information leaflets given to new Peers, which describe the working background and responsibilities of this House. I am sure that all noble Lords would agree that this information reaches the highest standards of presentation and content. Very few commercial firms or other organisations could do better. This information undoubtedly reflects the smooth efficiency and high standards of this House. I hope to do all that I can to justify the encouragement and help that I have received.
	I would especially like to avoid an experience that I had early on in my eight years as a Member in the other place. During Prayers, I remember hearing the familiar sound of a mobile phone ringing. I looked around, thinking, "This is outrageous". But wait—the sound seemed to be rather close. In fact, it was coming from my pocket. Imagine my embarrassment when Prayers finished and there were cries from the opposite Benches, led by the redoubtable Dennis Skinner: "It's him. It's him". Fortunately for me, the Speaker, now the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, chose to ignore it and proceeded with business. Today, I have not only switched off my mobile phone but left it in my office just to be sure.
	I am glad that my title "of Congresbury" enables me to speak about the village where my wife and I live. It has a lively and caring population, a real community, which dates back to the 12th century.
	I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate because the subject is dear to my and many other people's hearts. In particular, I would like to speak about an event of a horrifying nature in 1994—the genocide in Rwanda. I declare an interest as the patron of SURF, a charity that was set up in 1997 to aid and assist survivors—widows, women, children and families—of the Rwandan genocide. In 1994, in only 100 days, more than 1 million people were slaughtered.
	In all adversity there are heroes, and I would like to talk about some of them. My first is Fergal Keane, the well known TV journalist and fellow patron of SURF. He was a prime mover in letting the world know of the genocide, risking his life and continuing to tell the story since. He is a hero because it takes both physical and moral courage to do something of that nature. It is a role, of course, that is still being played courageously even today by many other journalists throughout the world.
	My second hero is Mary Blewitt, who set up and runs the charity SURF. Supported by many good people, she is an inspiration and a survivor herself. I know that she would want me to refer to many others who work heroically for this cause, but mostly she would say—and I agree—that there are other heroes, those who survived and to this day struggle to cope and recover. The work of SURF includes practical aid, while a big aim is to establish a resource and testimony centre to provide an archive and a sanctuary for survivors in Rwanda. Work goes on to respect the dead. Over the past year, 22 mass graves have been built and a further 23 are planned for 2006 so that people can pay their respects.
	Speaking of heroes, there are many testimonies, and I shall refer to just one, that of a young girl called Valentina, who was 11 years old when the events took place. As she said, she came from a,
	"happy family who did not want for anything".
	But on 12 April 1994, killers entered the church where they had taken refuge, killing her family for no reason.
	Finally I want to speak of another hero, Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, the general in charge of the UN force entrusted to stop the killing. He was not given the troops he needed and his warnings were not heeded during the run-up to the genocide. The killing could have been stopped and the general strove heroically. But because of lack of support and troops, we see a record of United Nations failure and the moral cowardice of many, allowing the genocide to take place.
	What is my reason for mentioning this today? I make a plea once again that the genocide in Rwanda must not be forgotten. We have natural tragedies in this world which are usually unstoppable, but we must renew our efforts to stop human killing human. I should like to end with some words from Lieutenant-General Dallaire:
	"In Rwanda I shook hands with the devil".
	But in his remarkable testimony, he says that he still believes in good in the world. I know that in this House great efforts are made to address these issues. Please may we carry on doing so. As the general said:
	"Sometimes humanity is called into question, but we have a duty to value all lives equally".
	He has expressed the hope that this century should become the century of humanity. We as humans need to rise above race, creed, colour, religion and national self-interest. I thank noble Lords for ensuring that today we are doing a little something to help to achieve that aim, but the international community still has a long way to go.

Lord Judd: My Lords, I have interests to declare as a trustee of Saferworld, a former director of Oxfam and a current member of the Oxfam Association, and I suppose that I should mention as relevant in this context ministerial experience long ago both at the Foreign Office and in overseas development.
	My first real joy is to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, on his maiden speech. By any yardstick it was an outstanding and moving speech, and it augurs well for the contributions that he will make to the future deliberations of the House. He brings to us his industrial experience; his service in local government and in the other place as a respected spokesperson on trade and industry; his continuing interest in green issues, which will be more and more dominant in all that we seek to do in politics; and, as we have heard today, his proven support for justice in the world. I was deeply affected, as I am sure other noble Lords were, by the way in which he described his experiences of Rwanda. If I have learnt anything in life about development, it is that the key is people. All over the place there are recognised and unrecognised heroes, and what he said rang very true to me.
	In congratulating the noble Lord, I hope it is in order for me to say how delighted I am that my noble friend Lady Quin is with us. I have had the highest regard for her contribution in the other place, both in government and out of it. I felt that Westminster was the loser when she seemed temporarily to disappear into the north-east region. It is good to see her back; we hope that she will remain as committed as ever to the north-east, but she will bring to all that we are doing very special qualities and experience. It really is good to have her here.
	This is a practical and highly relevant Bill. I join in thanking my noble friend Lady Whitaker for having introduced it so well in this House. I also pay tribute to my old personal friend in the other House, Tom Clarke, for his long-standing commitment to development issues, evidenced in what he has made possible in the Bill.
	The Government's commitment to fulfilling the 0.7 per cent within a specific timescale has been a very important record. It sets standards, as has been said, for other parts of the world. The Bill will be helpful in ensuring the effective delivery of this aspiration—in other words, it will ensure the fuel for the task.
	As has already been suggested, success in the cause of eliminating world poverty will depend on other key contextual issues as well. Perhaps I can refer briefly to some of them. Governance is crucial; the quality, character and calibre of governance in any particular country are key to success. In this context, it is right to mention corruption. I make only one other point in mentioning corruption: I hope that as a society we hold the mirror to ourselves and we do not only tell other people to do as we say they should do but that we ask ourselves whether we are setting the standards, in all respects, that we are asking them to follow. How far, when corruption occurs in impoverished countries, is its origin traceable to activities by people in this part of the world?
	There are the issues of multilateralism and bilateralism. I am unashamedly a multilateralist, again for very practical reasons. I think it makes a nonsense of development to see hard-pressed Administrations and Ministers striving to establish a strategy when people are queuing at their door and coming up with—competing, even—different programmes, trying to persuade them to link up to their particular interest and approach. The more one can get a cohesive approach, the sounder will be the approach to development. If we are to see a continuing emphasis on multilateralism, we will need to know a little more—perhaps the annual reports will provide a good vehicle—about the conditionality that applies in multilateral programmes. Fortunately, in this country, we have seen the light and set our face against tied aid, but in multilateral programmes there is a good deal of tied aid still, and we need to know more about the conditions, as we do about the arrangements for our aid going through other people's bilateral programmes.
	There are also issues relating to the European Union. One of the tasks of the European Union is, surely, to play an active role in helping to co-ordinate the bilateral programmes of the members of the European Union, so that we are not inadvertently pulling against each other but are always together trying to ensure that we are pulling alongside the governments of the developing world.
	There are the issues of climate change, and all that we are trying to do in the third world can very rapidly be undone by what is happening in the context of climate change, which hits poor economies particularly hard and the poorest people extremely hard. Responsibility for making a success of policies on climate change rests with the kind of domestic policies that we have in countries such as the United Kingdom in the relevant spheres.
	There is a need for preventive measures against disasters, because the poor particularly suffer from disasters and catastrophes when they occur. There are issues of the globalisation of pandemics. I was concerned, as I am sure were other noble Lords, that discussions about pandemics that we have been having of late tend to focus on how we will protect the wealthy and privileged people of the world. What will be the consequences for the majority of humankind out there in the countries to which we are referring? Of course, if pandemics strike, they strike the economies of the countries with which we are concerned, as we have seen tragically with AIDS.
	Then there are the issues of conflict. When I was director of Oxfam, I was struck by the fact that more than half our programmes in the world were dealing with the consequences of conflict. If we are serious about development, we must give pride of place to measures to combat the arms trade, control the small arms that do so much of the killing, tackle conflict resolution, support peace building and ensure effective reform of the security sector.
	Perhaps the most important issue of all is that of the systems of global finance and trade within which we operate. It is not simply a matter of ensuring that the agendas of the international financial institutions address the issues of poverty and of the poorest people in the world. We must ensure that the agendas of the international financial institutions reflect the priorities of the disadvantaged people and disadvantaged nations of the world. They should feel a sense of ownership of those agendas and not find themselves in a position of simply responding to the agendas of the relatively privileged.
	If we are to see sustained development and sustained success in the cause of eliminating world poverty, security and stability are essential. Grotesque differentials in wealth and the exclusion of highly intelligent—sometimes, well educated—people from any influence over power in the international community are highly relevant to the issues of sustained development. If those feelings of alienation and frustration continue unabated, there will be insecurity: there will be conflict. Therefore, we have to tackle the issues of the redistribution of political power in the world if we are to make sustained success in building society in the future. Those are imperatives if we are to get it right.
	I welcome the Bill. It is a refreshingly practical, targeted Bill. It will ensure that we have the wherewithal for the task. I thank my noble friend Lady Whitaker for having brought it into the House. I am sure that we must respond to the entreaties of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. We should give it a quick and clear passage, but in so doing, let us face up to the strategic contextual issues without which it will not be able to achieve its objectives.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for taking forward her right honourable friend's Bill. I speak as another veteran support of the aid programme, from the NGO perspective. Friends should also be constructive critics, and I shall make a few comments that will not delay the passage of the Bill. Meanwhile, I add my congratulations to the two maiden speakers on their very sincere and eloquent contributions and their remarks about this House, which will be much appreciated.
	Most of us remember the old ODA and the mistakes and distortions of aid under previous administrations. From groundnut schemes to giant power projects, we blundered our way through developing countries in the name of poverty eradication when really we were establishing post-colonial elites to the detriment of the poor and of our own political relations with those countries. That was not that long ago. I personally credit the NGOs and universities—notably the Institute of Development Studies and the Overseas Development Institute—with many of the positive changes that have gradually percolated into departmental policies since those days.
	The new broom Government of 1997 had already learned a lot from the reforming era of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, mentioned a number of challenges, and there will be many. He mentioned climate change, trade and conflict. There are also the inequalities in aid giving and the problems of absorptive capacity. These will continue in future, but now we have a much more balanced, better targeted and more rights-based programme than we have ever had. The recent Development Assistance Committee peer review was in itself testimony to the quality of our aid programme. It said that the UK programme was at,
	"an historic high point of political and public support".
	I am glad that through this Bill, measuring performance against the millennium development goals, the Government will be able to report more fully and honestly to Parliament—or to the magical Palace of Westminster, as the noble Baroness put it. The present DfID departmental report has grown to 300 pages, and is already quite comprehensive in terms of MDG progress. Does the Minister expect the new one to duplicate this or replace it? I hope that it will not be too heavy with statistics.
	On the subject of aid reporting, many will be pleased to see that the Prime Minister has set up yet another group to monitor the Gleneagles targets, but I hope that DfID will continue to fund low-level civil society monitoring groups, especially in HIPC countries, as they can usually do this debt monitoring work much more effectively. This was because an urgent priority since the World Bank's independent evaluation, which showed that at least eight countries have slipped back to dangerous levels of debt when we thought that they were through the process.
	The DAC review noted "substantial movement" towards the 0.7 per cent target. We have all watched progress towards the UN targets go into loops under successive governments and the graph is now steeply up, but it seems highly unlikely that it will ever be more than a target. I am more interested in seeing the MDGs in the Bill, because individually they tell the story of our aid programme much more accurately. Incidentally, the DAC review questioned whether a 10 per cent reduction in staff was wise in the context of a fairly rapid budget increase. Perhaps the Minister will have a ready answer to that.
	A good deal of our aid budget is, rightly, spent in this country. It is 10 years since I introduced a debate in this House on the development of education—perhaps the first of its kind. Since then, and through the influence of the Development Education Association, both DfID and the DfES have moved a long way towards the building of awareness of international affairs and citizenship in schools and local communities. I could give many examples, but my key point is that the public have not until now been given the chance to comment properly on our aid programme. Diversion of aid and corruption have long been easy targets, and a preoccupation of those who always find reasons to dampen down enthusiasm. The much bigger development budgets tend to operate behind screens of jargon, official spin and mystique, and it is rare that the media expose scandals which have occurred in our aid programme on the scale of Pergau or Narmada. I doubt that the innocuous language of this Bill will reveal much more, but it should improve the public's general awareness of the detail. Will the Minister confirm that both DfID and the DfES, and perhaps other joined-up departments, will report annually on development education and development awareness? Perhaps DfID, as the lead agency, could take on this role within the terms of the Bill.
	In the spirit of greater transparency I would like to introduce an idea that has probably already been considered by the Government and rejected. Under paragraph 2(1)(b) of the Schedule the report has to include a list of aid recipient countries. I recommend that, here or elsewhere, the UK itself is included on the list of recipients. I say that in all seriousness as one who has worked for most of his life in the aid business. For fear of admitting too much, we have repeatedly failed to acknowledge the contribution of our own country in the annual statistics. Through our policy of untied aid, which I commend, we have thereby neatly dodged any traces of our own involvement. How many people, for example, are employed in the UK in all our aid programmes, including those of the NGOs and churches? I doubt the Government could answer that, but I believe they should take steps to do so if they are going to be transparent.
	Surely this of all Governments should be brave enough to admit, under Clause 6(1) of the Bill, to the retention of some of our aid in this country. Not only do we support a larger department—and there are some statistics in the annual report already—but there are a host of consultants based in the UK working for DfID, the EU or one of the many international and UN aid agencies. Even if we have ended our tied aid, many of our overseas operations still require technical support from home, and that means jobs for people in British industries. Then there are the many UK-based media, local community and education projects I have already mentioned that are supported by DfID and the DfES. There are the British Council and BBC World Service aid programmes, funded by the FCO. It would be healthy if these projects were all reported and audited in a separate column to give the public a truer picture of how aid benefits the givers as well as the receivers. I would not be surprised to learn from this exercise that the UK is one of our own leading aid beneficiaries.
	There was a time, when I was on Christian Aid's staff, when I could be cynical about government spending at home. We in the NGOs always told the public that we deducted 2 or 3 per cent for administration and a little more for fundraising, and all the rest would go to the poor. I have come to appreciate the true costs of aid administration, and now of awareness-building. I genuinely believe the public have a right to know exactly what those costs are. I too wish this Bill a fair wind.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, from these Benches we are happy to support this Bill. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for introducing it. I too pay tribute to Tom Clarke for taking this Bill through the Commons, and to the NGOs that helped to draft it. My colleague in the other place, John Barrett, was a co-sponsor. As we saw in the Commons, and as we see again in the Lords, this Bill commands cross-party support. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for her thoughtful and well informed maiden speech. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Cotter for his equally committed and very moving speech.
	The noble Lord has referred to my role as his supporter. I was honoured to be asked by him to dress up in a red robe and support him in that fashion. I do not often get that chance. I am grateful that he has made his maiden speech in support of this particular area.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has so effectively and comprehensively explained, this Bill seeks to bring accountability and transparency to what the UK does in terms of aid and humanitarian relief. Last year, Make Poverty History made a public case for assisting the poorest people in the poorest countries of the world, and by the end of that year, eight out of 10 people in the UK were familiar with its message. That was an incredible achievement. Children like mine wore white wrist bands and knew exactly why they did so.
	But it would be too easy to let this subject slip. The UN High Level Panel, of which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was such a notable member, made clear last year that development relates to the security of us all; it is not simply about what we should do to help those most in need, though that is, or should be, the key motivation. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and others exactly what that means in terms of the support that is needed.
	This Bill ensures that governments of whatever colour must report on what they are doing in international development under a number of headings, which, one hopes, would make it difficult to put an inappropriate gloss or spin on things. The Bill aims to increase transparency in reporting in this area so that the level, poverty-focus and coherence of the Government's international development policy and expenditure, and their contribution towards reaching the millennium development goals, can be readily tracked over time. As the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, has said, DfID produces a comprehensive annual report, but that forces parliamentarians to read and assess it.
	If the Bill becomes law, it will require the Secretary of State to prepare an annual report to Parliament using information that is comparable over time, including between government administrations. It will also place on the statute book for the first time a specific reference to the UN target—which we signed up to in 1970—for expenditure on official development assistance to constitute 0.7 per cent of gross national income. It will also for the first time prescribe in law how DfID should report on its development policies and use of resources. As I have mentioned, it strengthens the role of parliamentarians in holding the Executive to account.
	I should illustrate how this might help. It is notable that Ireland made the commitment of having a timetable to meet the 0.7 per cent target when it held the presidency of the EU. It promptly reneged on that as soon as the UK took over from it and the international spotlight was off it. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has mentioned how Governments pay tribute to that goal while all the time moving away from it. The Bill would make such slippage less easy, or at least more embarrassing, and that is helpful to us in all parties if we wish to see the MDGs delivered, ever. Would that there were similar Bills going through other Parliaments and within the European Parliament.
	As my noble friend Lord Chidgey put it, this Bill is one tool in our toolbox. I note that he wishes to add at least one more—his Bill against corruption. I look forward to cross-party support on that. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made it crystal clear how important this is and how much more we all need to do.
	It has been made clear that this is a straightforward Bill that is fit for purpose and that any slippage in the timetable in the Lords will cause it to fail. I have heard no rumours of people wishing to see changes in it, such that they would jeopardise its passage. Lest noble Lords think that the Bill was simply rubberstamped in the other place, I point them to the inch-thick transcript of the Commons discussions. I have to admire Tom Clarke's deft footwork in stepping over and round not only a critic or two but also, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, put it, the expansiveness and lengthy support of some friends.
	An editorial in the Guardian of 15 June stated:
	"Few private members' bills become law. Fewer still can hope to affect millions of lives. But the international development bill . . . just might".
	In the interests of brevity I will not detain your Lordships further and simply say that the Liberal Democrats strongly support this Bill, that we will table no amendments to it in the interests of it passing into law, and that we are very glad indeed that it has been brought forward.

Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, it is an unusual delight to take part in debating a Bill that has such wide support all round the Chamber. I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, on introducing the Bill with her usual flair and commitment. I also congratulate our two maiden speakers. Their loss to another place is our gain. Now that they are fully fledged, I look forward to hearing many contributions from them in the future.
	The Bill stimulated a well informed, interesting and passionate debate which my noble friends Lady Rawlings and Lady Chalker will be sad to have missed. They have asked me to offer their apologies for their absence. It is clear that there is support from all Benches for the Bill's general principles. The recent Unstarred Question on corruption in Africa, following the APPG report on the subject, highlighted only one of the most significant problems to affect international aid and the imperative need for the UK to act in a transparent and accountable manner.
	It is easy to see why corruption is considered the greatest obstacle to global development. We therefore understand the importance of knowing exactly where the money is going. In our many discussions over the years on the financing of aid, we have always considered the effectiveness of UK aid and our contribution through EU funding. It is clear that aid is effective at reducing poverty only if it is targeted and reaches those who need it most, without, one hopes, compromising the potential for local and national services to step into place once they are on their feet. In simplistic terms: why bother to grow your own food if you cannot sell the excess on the market, as it is flooded with food aid? There is always a question of the effect that aid in any form can have in the long term on development, and that comes even before we consider the pockets it may be lining on the way.
	Our long-term goal must be to assist the developing world in graduating from dependence on aid to strong democracies with vibrant economies, civil society, good governance, the rule of law and fairer trade, to name but a few aspirations. We must provide the leg-up that is needed for the most vulnerable to help themselves.
	It is timely and interesting that, at the start of this week, the Prime Minster confirmed plans for his Africa Progress Panel to monitor the progress of the promises on poverty made by the G8 last summer. Save the Children and the World Development Movement, among others, have expressed criticism and concern that the panel's reports will be null and void without the G8's agreement to adhere to those suggestions and that the Prime Minister is to some degree,
	"picking his own panel to hold himself accountable for his own promises".
	I hope that the Minister will make time to respond to those charities' concerns.
	Perhaps by accepting the Bill and enabling its report to lead to an annual debate on this aspect of development, the Prime Minister will be able to demonstrate that he and his Ministers are prepared to be held accountable in Parliament for their actions, and in turn for parliamentarians to be held accountable to the people. I commend the work of the Department for International Development. As your Lordships have stated, however, there is always room for improvement. Indeed, an internal DfID report states:
	"While there are many examples of positive contribution to development progress, there is generally insufficient information on the link between DfID's inputs and interventions on the one hand, and positive outcomes observed on the other".
	The report also states,
	"there is no single, overall strategic plan which guides the allocation and deployment of DfID resources".
	Despite the changes, I still have outstanding concerns that the Bill focuses on inputs rather than outputs. I hope that it will be the foundation for a major shift towards assessing the results of aid to make clear the effect of taxpayers' money on the actual alleviation of poverty. As noble Lords have highlighted, the Bill does not enable easy comparison of different funding schemes' effectiveness. I hope that the Minister will consider that further as the Bill progresses through the House.
	Several changes were made to the Bill in the other place which have helped to make it clearer and simpler. We welcome those changes and, in particular, the requirement that DfID report every year on humanitarian assistance. I need not remind your Lordships that DfID spent £437 million on this aspect of aid in 2004–05, a sum that we should make certain is well spent. We also welcome the increase in the number of countries to be assessed for aid effectiveness, mentioned in Clause 4, from 10 to "not fewer than 20", in response to our comments in the other place. We are the first to acknowledge that there is sometimes a fine balance between bureaucracy and the need for transparency in the name of good governance, but we believe that there was a strong case for extending the number of countries to be covered by this Bill, not least because a country's situation can change so much in a year. I hope that the noble Baroness will reiterate the commitment that, for the lifetime of this Government, 25 countries will be monitored.
	There is overwhelming support for the strengthened links between the millennium development goals and aid, in addition to the significant statutory footing that this legislation provides for the spending target of 0.7 of our gross national income on international development.
	I have only touched on the main issues raised. It is clear that there is still a strong feeling that DfID is too focused on inputs not results—brownie points for money spent rather than its effectiveness. It is telling that NGOs argue that it has been,
	"a year since Gleneagles and we have seen little that demonstrates unity of purpose from G8 leaders".
	This Bill is not the whole answer but it is a positive step in the right direction and, as such, we support it and wish it a fair wind as it makes its way on to the statute book.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lady Whitaker for taking this very fine Bill through the Lords, and I am delighted that it has been warmly welcomed by all noble Lords who have participated in today's debate and those who could not be present—the noble Baronesses, Lady Chalker and Lady Rawlings.
	I also pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill on his skill and dedication in drafting this clear and concise Bill; it was, indeed, deft footwork, as the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said. As my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester informed us, Tom Clarke has a fine track record in this area. Important changes were made in the other place and I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, that the report will cover 25 countries, as was agreed there.
	It was a real pleasure to listen to the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Quin, who I have known and held in high esteem since we worked together in 1979, when we shared interesting, enjoyable but incredibly frustrating times, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, who I do not yet know—but I have spent many happy hours in his former constituency of what we used to call, "Weston-super-mud". I note that we also share the same recreational interests. Both speakers will add greatly to the expertise and collective wisdom of this House and I look forward to their valuable contributions.
	This is undoubtedly an important Bill. It may be only one tool in the toolbox of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, however it is a welcome and innovative tool. It will enhance parliamentary scrutiny of Ministers in delivering on our pledges to help the poorer countries and peoples of the world. Also, through Parliament, it will ultimately make Government accountable to the people. Personally, I fervently hope that the annual reports that will result from the Bill will inform, stimulate and reinvigorate public debate and build on the strong public support for international development already engendered by such initiatives as the Make Poverty History campaign. Indeed, I hope that it will be a means of enhancing democratic engagement.
	The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked about the form of the report. This matter is still under discussion in DfID, but we hope that there may be one report encompassing the annual report and the report demanded by the Bill. In answer to one of his earlier questions about 10 per cent cuts, DfID has invested in a programme of modernisation of its administrative systems that will release 10 per cent of its support staff by 2008 and will result in significantly more efficient and effective processes for planning, accounting and monitoring, allowing us to devote more resources to front-line delivery.
	The efforts of Make Poverty History campaigners helped to ensure that an unprecedented level of attention was focused on international development in 2005—with splendid results. This allowed the UK, as president of the G8, to strongly advocate real change leading up to the G8 Summit at Gleneagles. I take this opportunity to commend an excellent little booklet entitled G8 Gleneagles: One Year On—Turning Talk into Action. It is packed full of useful facts and figures. I note the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, about the G8 and accountability of commitments. I assure her that the Prime Minister's panel, established this week, has been warmly welcomed globally. That is very good news.
	As my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development made clear in another place, the Bill also provides a powerful model for other countries—developed and developing—to follow. It provides a clear example of how the democratic process can be advanced by ensuring that Parliaments, on behalf of the peoples they represent, have the ability to examine and influence the development policies and programmes of their countries and, in turn, hold their Governments to account.
	As noble Lords have said, one of the key elements of the Bill is that it establishes, for the first time in UK law, the importance of a date by which to achieve the UN target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income to be devoted to official development assistance. As your Lordships will know, it is vital that all donor countries meet this crucial international target, and I am proud to say that this Government will do so, at the latest, by 2013. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I trust that it will have a multiplier effect.
	However, reporting is not just about money. It is about how British policies and programmes are changing the lives of people in poor countries for the better. I particularly welcome the fact that the Bill highlights the importance of policy coherence across government departments in promoting international development. Reporting is about the impact of our endeavours on the ground, and we have, through the millennium development goals, a powerful mechanism to deliver that. We need the Bill so that progress towards making poverty history and achieving the millennium development goals can be set out and scrutinised.
	The year 2005 represented a milestone—notably at Gleneagles, where the G8, spurred on by the Make Poverty History campaign, came together as never before. Important commitments were made at Gleneagles and we now have to deliver on those. We have an obligation to the world's poor but also to our own taxpayers. As my noble friend Lady Quin said, people want to know that their money is being well spent. Our aid must be effective and well targeted. We know that, given the right circumstances, development works. The Bill will help us to demonstrate that things are changing for the better.
	Ultimately, progress depends on the ability of individual partner Governments to deliver on poverty reduction for their people. The commitments made in 2005 were predicated on a commitment to better governance in partner countries. My noble friend Lord Judd was right to emphasise the importance of good governance.
	The Bill highlights the need for greater transparency in the provision of aid and in the way that it is used with partner countries. Only national Governments and their citizens can build states and improve their political governance to the point where corruption is stifled. Donors, of course, can play a support role in that process through funding, support for capacity building and diplomatic engagement. We are active in all those areas. We are also working in more targeted ways to support national strategies and to fight corruption. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, is absolutely right to say that we have much more to do in the fight against corruption. I can assure noble Lords that the Government will remain active on this issue, with my right honourable friend Hilary Benn championing the issue across Government. We in this country have to ensure that we adhere to the highest possible standards.
	On fighting corruption, we need enforcement actions such as strong and effective anti-corruption agencies and preventative measures. Such measures include strengthening public sector budgetary and financial management, procurement, accounting and auditing, reforming Civil Service management, enhancing public oversight through strengthened parliamentary committees, developing measures to reduce judicial corruption and supporting civil society to promote transparency and accountability in public life. The best people to promote good governance and to help to fight corruption are those who live in the country and are most affected by such issues. That is why we hope that this Bill will be taken as a model for such Governments to engage with their peoples and parliaments and to be held to account.
	We are at a crossroads. I have set out reasons for us to be optimistic but there are real challenges ahead. Progress towards achieving the millennium development goals is uneven. So many of the world's poor lack enough food to eat, enough water to drink, a roof over their heads, a job, a school for their kids and medicine and care when they are sick. One in six human beings has to live on less than a dollar a day; 30,000 children die needlessly every day; half a million women still die each year in pregnancy or childbirth; over 40 million people already live with HIV; tuberculosis and malaria persist; and new problems like avian flu require concerted international action. Above all, there is the overarching need to manage the planet sustainably and fairly for all.
	The noble Lord, Lord Cotter, said that we have a duty to value all human lives, the poorest included. The population continues to increase but many of the natural resources on which we rely are already becoming seriously depleted. Climate change is the most serious and urgent problem that the world faces. Disaster prevention measures, as referred to by my noble friend Lord Judd, are also a challenge, as are conflict resolution and the strategic issues that he mentioned. We need this important Bill to track precisely and in detail how the Government will in the years ahead tackle these major challenges. It is a very welcome tool in our toolbox, and I warmly commend the Bill to the House.

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords on the Front and Back Benches most warmly for their support. I too was impressed by the splendid maiden speeches. I was taken by the suggestion of my noble friend Lady Quin that the Bill could be a model for other countries and organisations, and by her appreciation of the importance of co-ordination across government departments. Who better to know about that?
	My noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester has asked me to explain his unavoidable absence for medical reasons. I thank him for his kind words and for his understanding of what the Bill is about.
	I would like to pick up four short points. First, a recurring theme has been the importance of transparency and the avoidance of corruption. The noble Lords, Lord Chidgey, Lord Hannay and Lord Judd, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, all mentioned that. As the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, said, the Bill enables transparency, but it goes far wider and I agree that we shall need specific legislation on corruption as well.
	For my noble friend Lord Judd, I add that the DfID White Paper may provide an occasion to respond to his important concerns about power in a couple of weeks or so. To him and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I offer the thought that the Bill obliges an account of the reduction of tied aid everywhere. As for the novel suggestion of a spin-off for the UK from aid activity, that is outside the concept of the Bill as I understand it, which is about the effect on developing countries. Perhaps it is a subject for another debate.
	Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, asked if there was not insufficient focus on the results of aid. We hope that the parliamentary debate on the annual report, as specified in the Bill, will provide an opportunity for that. I draw her attention to Clause 4(1), where "effectiveness" is used more than once. I hope she and her noble friends will challenge the Government on that. I was most grateful for her support.
	The Bill will help to make public and parliamentary accountability and public enthusiasm motors for the continued change needed to achieve a fair world order. It is a Bill for the future. It is modern, in that it inserts an audit function into the heart of expenditure, and sensible because every taxpayer naturally and reasonably wants to be assured that their money not only goes on what was voted for in Parliament, but achieves the objectives for which it was meant.
	On Question, Bill read a second time.

House adjourned at seventeen minutes past seven o'clock.